bolder by the lip
by callmesandy
Summary: Pepper said yes to going to Venice. The secret of Tony's success was to tell Pepper the truth, always. (AU from Iron Man 2)
1. Chapter 1

not mine, no profit garnered. Title and opening quote from J.P. Dancing Bear's Beach with Telephone for Edwin Van De Grift. Thanks to A for beta help, all mistakes mine.

* * *

 _all that remains between the mountains and the eye: is glassy coldness: even the snails are climbing up the phone receiver: trying to dial out: the air is so thin: full of tension: as if everything is pressing: against the seams: one bolder by the lip: of the lake looks: like the long lost Madonna: —_ shhhh: don't tell anyone: _people you don't know will be lining up: for a miracle: her reflection: has a deep gash along one side: blood and tears: as if the lake wants a line: of true believers: anyway: you can almost believe: that the lake has a mind: of its own: but a cold and cunning one: at dawn you can hear it: whispering wisps of mists: saying_ come dive: come bath: come cannonball

"Let's go to Venice," Tony said. It was a shot in the dark, a silly hope.

Pepper looked at him with a softness in her face. He thought of a 100 ways to tell her everything, from his soon to be death to his longstanding wish to spend the rest of his life with her. Nothing was really coming out of his mouth, though.

Pepper said, "Okay. Okay, let's do it."

"Excellent plan, excellent, I'm thrilled," Tony said. Things had snapped into place. He felt much better besides the usual excruciating pain.

Tony had a so so place in Venice, it needed a lot of work. It wasn't the place they'd stayed in last time, their one day of fun. He'd bought the place in Venice after that visit because he loved her.

He catalogued all of it, made a list, turned on JARVIS in this house. "Pepper," Tony said, turning to her. She was standing in the entryway, still, with her bag and her still soft face. "So, fun story. I'm dying. Literally, not in the we're all dying because we're not immortal Super Soldiers, but you know, 3 to 4 months before the end. Possibly sooner."

"That's why you gave away our art," she said. "And made me CEO."

"Making you CEO was just a smart move, whether I'm terminal or not. You're perfect for the job, you should have it. You should have had it years ago," Tony said.

"Thank you," she said. "You're really dying? What do you mean, you're dying?"

"The metal in this." Tony patted his chest. "It's killing me. Poisoning me. I can't figure out how to fix it. But I'd like to move on to the second reason I wanted to be here. Which is I love you. You are absolutely gorgeous, just amazingly brilliant, I love you this much. Imagine I'm throwing my arms pretty wide here. Right now I'm kinda fatigued and don't have the flexibility."

"Move along to the second part?" Pepper took off her heels and sat down on the floor without any of her usual grace. So she was taking it in. Thankfully, even if the place did need a ton of remodeling, Tony paid well for good cleaners. Really, Pepper probably did that. "You're really dying? Why can't you, I assume you've tried different metal. Or elements. Why not get that thing removed? We can afford, Tony, we can get anyone. You choose. We get that thing taken out of your chest. And you don't die. And then we can talk about the second thing."

"It's not a simple surgery, Pepper," Tony said. "Don't you think I thought of that?"

"Did you? Did you just fixate on the arc reactor in my chest is killing me and not why don't I get that reactor taken out?"

"I don't think it's possible," Tony said.

"When did you look into it? Did you really look into it?" Pepper stood up and grabbed her bag. She pulled her tablet out of it. "You're a genius but you don't have an MD, Tony. You don't work on these things, actual bodies and hearts. We're Stark Industries, we're insanely wealthy. If someone on this planet can take that thing out, we can find them and pay them and get that thing out."

"That wasn't really what I was focused on," Tony said, suddenly wondering if he had explored all his options. Had he? Now Pepper was marching around the living room which had been lovingly restored and only needed a little rewiring, if Tony remembered correctly.

But clearly, Pepper was already getting a signal since she was already on the phone. He listened to her talk for five minutes and then she said, "No, get me that guy. The best. We were talking about this two weeks ago, that guy."

"Pepper, are we going to talk about this?"

"No," Pepper said. She held up a single finger to him to shush him and he realized the no was to whomever she was speaking to. "JARVIS?"

"Yes, Miss Potts?"

"I need you to send the schematics, or the x-rays, everything you have on Tony's heart and the shrapnel, send it to these two addresses." She rattled off two addresses, one in China, one in Switzerland. "I need to hear back as soon as possible."

She turned on him. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I didn't tell you because, because I'm me, Pepper. It took me a while to give up on fixing it myself. I did think about the surgery, I promise you."

"Not for very long, sir," JARVIS said.

"Thanks, thank you very much, that's very helpful," Tony said.

"See, even JARVIS says you had tunnel vision. This is you, Tony, you all over. You get this idea, you have one idea and you think that's the only idea but you're wrong. You don't need to invent the wheel," Pepper said. "Or create fire."

"I'm not trying to create fire. I'm trying to, did I mention I love you?"

"Yes," Pepper said. "I heard you. But first we make sure you're not going to die." She was still on the phone and he was suddenly exhausted. He'd gotten everything off his chest, maybe he'd lost his rush to do when he'd decided to share it.

Tony went to sleep or think or pretend to think and fall asleep. He asked JARVIS if JARVIS had any time between stabbing him in the back to Pepper and doing whatever Pepper wanted to get Tony's suits and some other equipment sent here. Pepper came upstairs to the bedroom, which also needed a lot of work and said, "Why are you being mean to JARVIS?"

"I didn't appreciate the not for very long comment," Tony said. "Not for very long, not for very long, my ass. I'm not attached to this thing in my chest, it's terrifying, it's shrapnel, Pepper, trying to rip my heart into pieces. It's a feature of my nightmares, pretty much all of them. The ones that aren't you dying or my mother yelling at me or that one thing with the octopus that broke out of the aquarium. And being tortured. That list got long, but I do know why I need this thing."

She sat on the bed next to him, almost on his lap. "You have nightmares about me?"

"I have dreams about you, too, can we act those out?"

"I'm not wearing whatever you're picturing right now," Pepper said.

"Not wearing anything in this one," Tony said, leaning in to pull her closer.

She touched his neck. "This rash, Tony. I'm going to talk to doctors." She sat back and then stood up. "There's a doctor in Korea, a Helen Cho, the work she's doing has tremendous potential, she's a genius. We've been watching her for years. She's been working on a kind of process, we might be able to reduce the scarring when the chest piece is gone with her work. I'm going to call her, set that up." She left and Tony did fall asleep.

He woke up in darkness. Pepper was on the other side of the bed, which made him happy. Happiest he'd been in months. If he wasn't going to die in the near future, he wanted to make sure this relationship with Pepper, having a relationship, it needed a solid foundation. He was thinking about a solid foundation and how little of an idea he had of what that meant when he saw someone coming in. He was lurching up, weak and unready thinking only protect Pepper when that someone stepped into the light. "Natalie?"

She stood respectfully at the foot of the bed while Tony did manage to get up and pull on a shirt. She walked out of the bedroom and he followed her. Finally she said, "Pepper called me to help set up the surgery. Or surgeries. But I think it might help you to see another consultant."

"I love a consultant whose hours are so fucking early in the morning that everyone is asleep, I feel so safe right now in this moment."

He went into the living room anyway. "Nick Fury," Tony said. He sat down on the couch across from the one Fury had commandeered. He looked past Fury to Natalie whose entire stance and attitude had shifted. "Not Natalie."

"This is Agent Natasha Romanov," Fury said, some kind of perplexing fatherly pride in his voice. "We assigned her to you when we first realized you were ill."

"And now she's fired," Tony said.

"No, I'm not," Natasha said. "I'm here to help Pepper."

Fury ran through his spiel about Vanko and Tony's father, the loving man who built SHIELD. Tony'd known about SHIELD since he was very young but always pretended not to since his father had never actually told him. Fury stomped off with a not very witty remark about the mystery of his heart, leaving Tony with random boxes and reels of film.

"I can't tell Pepper who you really are?"

"Define real," Natasha said.

"Not Natalie Rushman," Tony said.

"I'll tell her myself, don't worry," Natasha said.

"Yeah, why would I worry," Tony said, hauling himself back to bed.

When he woke up, Pepper had showered and gotten dressed in her version of casual. She smiled at him as he woke up. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Pepper."

"You're not going to die," she said. "I talked to both surgeons and Dr. Cho. I think we're going to make this work."

"When do I go under the knife? Is it in a few hours?"

"Even I can't do that," Pepper said. "Three days."

"There's a lot I can do in three days," Tony said.

"You don't have to," she said. "I love you."

"Can we do that before I get this thing taken out and have a hideously deformed chest?"

"Tonight we can," she said. "Happy birthday."

"It is now," he said.

The house was deserted. Pepper went somewhere to arrange more things for the surgery, Natasha disappeared and all Tony had were his father's films. It was still illuminating. It took him an hour to figure out the layout of the Expo and his dad's new element.

He looked around. He could do that here. If he weren't dying much faster than he'd anticipated. He'd make it to the surgery but not if he put on the suit and went into remodel mode. He called Rhodey.

"You're dying," Rhodey said.

"Probably not now," Tony said. "Pepper's on it, I have an idea, but yes, in this present moment my death is looming on the horizon instead of just the usual far off certainty."

"Maybe if you'd said something earlier, Pepper and I could have helped sooner," Rhodey said.

"Does that sound like me? You two know me best, you can't be surprised when I'm stubborn," Tony said.

"I would say stupid." Rhodey still had that almost tender look in his eye and Tony leaned into the hug he knew he was getting.

"You always smell good," Tony said.

"Ha, ha, we're not doing that anymore," Rhodey said, walking to the just delivered boxes from California.

"What if it's you and me and Pepper? It is my birthday," Tony said.

"Let's save it for when you turn 50," Rhodey said.

"You're not ruling it out," Tony said. "Well, I'm going upstairs. Don't knock if you hear lube in use."

Rhodey said, "Save it. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to put on the suit and help me build a Hadron Collider here in the living room," Tony said.

He got the expected amount of lip but once Rhodey put on the suit, he quieted down. He loved that suit. Tony was going to tell him later he'd been working on that one just for Rhodey, a way to protect his legacy when he died. Even now that he wasn't probably dying, he'd let Rhodey have a suit. In a world of people Tony had no trust in, he knew for certain Rhodey would always do the right thing.

Rhodey even took direction well. By the time Pepper came in and nearly passed out from the renovations, the collider was nearly done. Pepper said, "I guess we're definitely buying this property."

"That was always going to happen, honey," Tony said.

Rhodey guided everything perfectly and they had their new element. Tony, Rhodey, Howard, and Pepper. Tony said, "You know I could just pop this puppy into my chest and I'd be fine."

"Until the next crisis, sure," Pepper said. "It won't be poisoning, but it will be something. You know that as well as I do."

"It's always something," Rhodey said. "Pepper's right."

"I know she's right, I just wanted to get out of the recovery time. They're calling us a lot of names on the news."

"I can handle it," Pepper said.

"And I got this nice suit," Rhodey said.

"Oh no, you don't," Pepper said. "It's a rental. That's Stark Industries property."

"I only made it for you in the case of my death," Tony said.

"You made one for Rhodey?" Pepper looked a little hurt though he couldn't figure out why.

"My suit can be keyed to you," Tony said to Pepper. "Just in case."

"Oh," Pepper said. He couldn't read her face at all.

JARVIS said something, always trying to horn in on the conversation, and Tony blinked and felt hot in a disgusting leaden blood way.

The next time he opened his eyes, he was back in bed. When he started to move, he noticed that the reactor in his chest felt different. Natalshie-a sat down next to him. "We replaced the palladium core with the new element after you passed out. There's still some poison in your system, of course. I wouldn't worry about doing anything too physical until after your heart surgery."

"Stop telling me what to do," he said, feebly. He feebly reached out his hand to push her away. He feebly realized he wasn't going to get to fuck Pepper tonight. "This isn't palladium poisoning."

"No, it's a counteracting agent combined with a sedative," she said. Natasha said. She added, "There are things you need to do before the surgery."

"I already wrote my will," Tony said. "You're getting nothing."

"I'll survive somehow." She walked out and he watched her ass. She had a great ass. Good thing Pepper was the whole package of everything he wanted or he'd be tempted.

Pepper came in next. She said, "You really should sleep."

"I'm trapped in bed, basically," Tony said. The new chest piece was actually pretty fantastic. He could feel the difference. It even overwhelmed the usual background pain from the chest piece, the constant adjustments his body made to the metal shoved in his heart.

Tony was indeed effectively trapped in his bed, but he had his tablet and therefore he could do anything. He checked the stats on the new piece. He made modifications to the suit to accommodate the new piece and the increased energy. He started sketching out other uses for his new element. Clean energy was the thing, he thought. Power, real power that reached everyone. Generators that could travel anywhere and make sure weather and earthquakes couldn't take out a hospital or fire department. He typed and mimed schematics. He said, "JARVIS? What are the odds on this surgery tomorrow?"

"The odds of your survival look to be about 54.87 per cent, sir. That is simple survival, not accounting for the possibility of a stroke during the surgery or other complications."

"That's, that's fantastic," Tony said. "How am I getting there?"

"We're flying," Pepper said. "Happy's here, by the way. I told him about your imminent death, he wasn't pleased."

"No longer imminent. New element in my chest piece means no more encroaching death," Tony said.

"Especially since we're taking the chest piece out," Pepper said.

"I would have told Happy," Tony said. "I told you first."

"Yes, thank you," Pepper said. "Because it's a contest. Is Natalie really a SHIELD agent?"

"Seems so," Tony said. "She's actually a pretty great assistant, pity to lose her to her actual job of, I don't know, killing people with her pinky."

Pepper took his tablet out of his hands. She waved away the schematics. She said, "Go to sleep. You have surgery."

"Kiss me goodnight," Tony said. He closed his eyes and felt her lips on his forehead.


	2. Chapter 2

He opened his eyes again and Happy was lifting him up to stretcher. "Seriously? I can walk," Tony said. Though he wasn't doing too well resisting Happy's manhandling. "I resent this," he said, as Happy got him strapped into the stretcher.

"That sounds about right," Rhodey said. Tony tried to think of a witty rejoinder.

He still hadn't thought of one but he opened his eyes and tried to sit up anyway. He was on his plane, now laid out on one of his couches. Pepper was in a chair across from him, reading. He said, "Hey, Pep. Next time I wake up I'll have the chest piece out, right?"

"No, you'll probably wake up a few times before we get to Switzerland and then we go to the private hospital and then they prep you for surgery," Pepper said. Her voice sounded less confident than usual.

"You sound like you're worried about me," Tony said. "That's not good."

"It's good because you love me and I, I reciprocate," Pepper said. "I was just reading, the surgeons and Dr. Cho sent a few preliminary reports."

"JARVIS said there's only a 45.13% chance of me dying," Tony said. "That's pretty good odds."

"Those are horrible odds. Is that why you didn't want to do this? You realized your odds weren't fantastic?"

"When I looked at the idea of this surgery, my chances of dying were much much higher. More like 85, 95 per cent. But thanks to you and your insistence, now it's less than half," Tony said. He laid back. "I haven't been the best man and god knows, my survival has been a very low priority in my life at many points. But now there's you and you will get this done. And if not, please know I really regret every time we didn't have sex when we almost could have because I would have loved to have had sex with you."

"Every time we almost had sex? Honestly, that's a pretty short list of times," Pepper said.

"No, it's not. It's at least 5 or 6," Tony said.

"I can think of 2," Pepper said.

"The times I wanted to have sex with you is nearly every day since I met you," Tony said.

Pepper said, "Liar."

Tony fell back asleep. He resurfaced and the plane had landed. Tony was in the back of a private ambulance somewhere in Switzerland. He saw Pepper and said, "I'm only lying a little."

"I forgot what we were arguing about, Tony, it was 3 hours ago," Pepper said. She had a watery smile.

"It was not 3 hours ago, I know how long it takes our plane to get from Venice to Bern," Tony said.

"Oh my god, was I exaggerating? You never do that," Pepper said.

"You do it, too," Tony said. "Wait."

He took a deep breath. "Pepper, I love you, you're fantastic, you're gorgeous. Just wanted to get that in. Just in case. You know. The 45th percentile."

"I love you, too," she said.

He did fall back into a stupor.

Tony floated. It was an effect of the anesthesia, of course. Even zoned out of his head, Tony realized that. But he floated. He watched from his own eyes, placid and unbothered, as Yinzen and others - who had helped? one of the terrorists? - put that thing in his chest. They had to save him. Why did they have to save him?

If he'd died then, it would have been okay. Not great at all, Obie would have kept selling weapons to terrorists, something would have happened to Pepper but she would have survived. Rhodey was always going to survive. But Tony felt it would have been okay.

He remembered all the torture. It happened at distance but it happened again. Like removing the chest piece let all those memories surge into his metaphorical heart. He assumed his body's pain was triggering the memories. Bringing them up to him in technicolor played out in front of him.

The worst was yet to come. He saw Obie. Obie laughing with his dad, Obie coming to the lab and Tony laughed, Obie saying Pepper was great, smart move to hire her. He expected the next parade of trauma to be his father but instead he was 13, lurking on the porch. He looked inside and saw Fury, his father, Peggy Carter, everyone sitting around talking. This, he thought, was a fabricated memory. He was sure Fury had never been to the house. He was sure he wasn't in 1983.

His mind jumped. He saw Atlantic City at 3 am, Rhodey walking naked on the boardwalk with impressive dignity. He saw Pepper in cheap jeans and barely there makeup, talking to Killian whathisface like she knew him. She had known him, she worked for him. Pepper was asleep on his couch, her posture worried even in sleep. He'd made her that way.

"Pepper," he said. He always thought of her when he was about to die.

Happy shook his head. He shook his head and said, "Come on, Tony." Happy was exasperated. He was driving a model T. "We've entered the subconscious associations part of this," Happy said.

"Are you a guide? You're an odd choice for a guide."

"Why? I'm not smart enough? You want someone smart and pretty like Pepper or Rhodey? No such luck, Tony." Happy seemed offended.

"If I were actually hoping, I would have angled for my mom or my dad. Or Jarvis. You never met Jarvis, did you?"

"I drove you to his grave, in the Jewish cemetery. Least creepy cemetery I've ever seen. I'm saying that so that must mean you think it," Happy said. "Not so dumb, am I?"

"You're me, of course, you're not," Tony said. "I've never thought about the relative creepiness of cemeteries."

"You obviously have," Happy said. They were, in fact, at a cemetery. The one where Anna and Edwin Jarvis were buried. Tony got out and went to their graves. They were beautifully maintained. Tony made sure Pepper paid for the best.

"I think I come here more than Dad's. If he weren't buried next to Mom, I'd never go. I still don't go," Tony said, standing there.

"Your father was a good man," Edwin Jarvis said, a disembodied voice but absolutely Edwin, not the AI. "Frustrating and complex, but a good man."

"I know you say that," Tony said. "And now I have all this evidence of his work with SHIELD, the people who liked him. Maybe you're right."

"I am frequently right," Edwin said.

"Listen to his ego," Anna said. She was not disembodied, she was younger than Tony had ever known, she was the age of the pictures Tony had seen, when they were all hanging out with Peggy Carter. "Listen to the ego of this man."

"He does sound more like me," Tony said.

"I am, as you are thinking, merely a figment of your imagination," Edwin said. "I do appreciate that you loved me. Somewhere out there."

"Don't sing to me, Jarvis," Tony said.

He was four and he could do anything, put any engine or computer in front of him and he could make them work. He clung to his mother's legs when he could, let Anna Jarvis feed him whatever she wanted. He sat on his mother's lap and listened to the two women in the kitchen, laughing. He thought, even though the memory wasn't totally clear, he thought they were making fun of his father. Even at four, Tony could appreciate that.

"What about the future? Do I get to see that?"

"So much ego," Anna said, tousling his four year old hair. "Why do you want to see the future? Let it happen. All we have is this. We die, we sleep in the dust. We endure." She kissed his forehead.

He opened his eyes. He was in pain. He couldn't move his neck. "Hey," he said. "Hey, am I awake?"

"You are now," someone said. She was in his eyeline and he thought, this is Helen Cho. "I'm Dr. Cho."

"How'd your part go?"

"My part is still going on," Dr. Cho said. "I'm working to fix your chest after the distortion from the chest piece."

"Big gaping hole," Tony said.

"You don't have a big gaping hole," Dr. Cho said. "I'm hoping to make it so you don't have a scar, but that is going to take some time."

Tony woke up. He woke up. He woke up. Then he finally actually woke up. This time he saw Pepper. He said, "Dr. Cho said she's working to get me a small gaping hole in my chest instead of the size of your fist. Or my fist."

"She's actually going to make it so there's no hole. Her work is amazing, Tony. She's going to revolutionize medicine," Pepper says.

"You sound so impressed," Tony said. "So she's doing good work on me. I assume, by the way, I'm not paralyzed and I didn't have a stroke and should recover eventually."

"Yes, you came through fine. So far you're having a very normal recovery."

"So far," Tony said.

"Do you want to worry about that? I'm trying not to," Pepper said. She wasn't wearing any make up. She looked beautiful but tired. He did that to her. It made him feel like an ass. Pepper deserved the world.

He said, "I love you. Since I'm probably going to survive, I wanted to reiterate that, you know, so you know I meant it."

"I knew you meant it," Pepper said. She touched his hair and drew her hand back. "Unfortunately, now we have to get back to business. There's a lot of, people are upset about Iron Man, upset that they haven't heard from you."

"Say I'm sick, but Rhodey has a spare suit which I plan to improve, and you're at the helm," Tony said.

"Nope," Pepper said. "Bad idea. Really bad idea. Put in the work for Rhodey's suit and we'll keep this under the radar. I have a ton of work to do, still. This CEO job is insane."

"It drove me insane, that's my excuse," Tony said.

"Stop being silly, you had your problems long before you were CEO and even when you had the job, I was doing 2/3rds of the work," Pepper said. She had a gorgeous cocky smile.

"Are you keeping Natalie as an assistant?"

"For a little while," Pepper said. "She's watching your recovery. Though she's been hanging out a lot with Rhodey. He loves that suit."

"Of course he does," Tony said. "Not that Iron Man needs a sidekick."

"Rhodey isn't going to be a sidekick to anyone," Pepper said.

He declined to look at his healing wound. He reveled for one moment in a deep breath with no fear. No worry of what would come into his heart.

He didn't dream.

He woke up to Happy this time. "Where's the pretty ones?"

"I'm pretty," Happy said. "Good to see you, boss."

"Good to see you, too," Tony said. "Nice being alive and not immediately dying."

"You look like shit, though. You look worse than when you got back from Afghanistan, you look worse than that vacation you took in 2002," Happy said. "Remember that one?"

"Not really," Tony said.

"You almost got a tattoo," Happy said.

"Because that would be the worst thing to happen to me," Tony said.

"You would have regretted that tattoo," Happy said.

"It was going to be an equation," Tony said. "Wasn't it?"

"Yeah, something stupid like that."

"Hey, can you get me a laptop or something? I had some ideas for the suit," Tony said.

Happy sighed heavily. "Okay, okay, I'll try. Don't yell at me if I grab the wrong one. Okay?"

"Ask JARVIS. JARVIS can tell you," Tony said.

He woke up again and this time he had a Natasha. "Hello, spygirl."

Natasha just looked at him. She handed him his laptop. "Are you planning to work on Rhodey's suit?"

"Yes, does that please you and Agent Fury?"

"It does," Natasha said.

"You want Rhodey in a suit more than me in a suit," Tony said. He'd already opened the laptop. He was already looking at the schematics. Step one was getting the new element in the reactor in Rhodey's suit. Step 2 was adding some modifications that would be more familiar for Rhodey. The kind of thing Tony didn't shoot as well.

"Who wouldn't want Rhodey in the suit more than you?"

"Me," Tony said. "Also, it's my suit."

"Rhodey's good in it," she said, a small smile.

"What a surprise, you prefer a good soldier to a -"

"Narcissist, alcoholic, self-destructive asshole?"

"I object to alcoholic," Tony said. "I really can quit anytime. I mean, with time, sure, but right now I'm more of a problem drinker." He smiled at her until he was sure she was irritated. "Do you want a suit, Natalie?"

Her face said no very clearly. He said, "Also, I've rigged one up for Pepper. She should never use it, but she needs to be safe. And you won't always be there. You'll almost never be there."

"I won't be there at all in a week," Natalie said.

"Pepper would be in danger and you wouldn't defend her? Wouldn't help her? That's cold," Tony said.

She rolled her eyes at him. She was very communicative in her way. He went back to his tablet and when he looked up, she was gone.

Pepper came in and sat beside him. He said, "How long until I can have sex? Specifically sex with you, I'm not planning on anyone else."

"A bit," Pepper said. She had her own laptop out, she was clearly working on CEO business.

"I just really really want to, Pepper. With you. I haven't had sex since before Afghanistan," he said.

"That's not true," Pepper said.

"You're wrong," Tony said. "It's very true."

"Are you not counting that woman, that one from the library?"

"Made out, no part of her came anywhere near my penis, sadly. Not that sadly, I can certainly live without sex, but I do miss sex," Tony said.

"Why wouldn't you have sex with her?"

"It is possible she didn't want to and you know I take that seriously. But actually neither of us wanted to. I was thinking of you, I'm sure she was thinking of someone else," Tony said.

"Who was she thinking of?"

"She talked a lot about her sorority sister," Tony said. "I'm not being a lech, I genuinely think I was her last date with a man."

"Poor thing," Pepper said, smiling. Then she frowned. "God, why did you promise Hammer a spot at the Expo?"

"I'm a dick?"

"Well, he's taking it, and I have to go because everything is in a freefall," Pepper said. "He is so repellant."

"That he is," Tony said. "Why do you have to go?"

"Because everyone is panicking about Vanko and you said no one would have this technology for years but Vanko has it now," Pepper said.

"Vanko is dead. I defeated him before he died," Tony said.

"I agree that all of that occured, but you can't change that people felt safe and don't feel safe now," Pepper said. "So I have to go and make Stark Industries look at least like it has a CEO."

He smiled at her. "Remember that time I tried to fly commercial? God, what was that?"

Pepper laughed. "You were drunk. And high on cocaine -"

"I was not. I only did coke in the 80s, I stopped in 1988. Never again," Tony said.

"You were 18," Pepper said. "And doing coke."

"I was very wealthy and famous and too smart for my own good," Tony said.

"You were definitely altered, you were not just drunk," Pepper said.

"There may have been something in the alcohol," Tony said.

"You were slipped something and decided to buy a ticket to, oh, god, was it Paris?"

"It was Dallas," Tony said. "No one slipped me anything. Whatever was in the alcohol, I consented to. And then I slipped away from Happy, and I wanted to go home. So I went to the airport and bought a ticket."

"You called me so I would show the TSA your driver's license which you didn't have on you," Pepper said.

"Ridiculous," Tony said. "Who else would I be? It was 2003 and my phone then was generations ahead of iphone now. I was on the cover of the Enquirer that week, why did I need a driver's license?"

"You have a driver's license and a passport, even if you never remember to carry it either with you," Pepper said.

"That's why I have you, right? Or why I need a new you. Not you like the woman I love, but a new assistant. Especially since Natalie has to go assassinate enemies of the state." Tony reached for Pepper's hand, it was an effort. A very worthwhile effort. He said, "Take the case."

"The Iron Man case? Rhodey has his suit, do I have to carry his back up? I'm not his assistant or his girlfriend," Pepper said.

"The case is for you. If you're in any danger, put the suit on and fly away. Get as far away as possible," Tony said.

"Don't stay and fight? You would stay and fight," she said.

"I'm stupid. I'm a dick. I'm self-destructive and a narcissist," Tony said. "You're none of those things so I want you safe. I need you safe. I have my heart all fixed here, Pepper. I want to get a chance to use it."

"You're already using it," Pepper said with wry, dry touch in her voice.

"Go with the metaphor, Pepper, come on," he said.

"It was just corny, sweetheart," Pepper said.

"I want to use my heart, I want to raise my heart rate with you, getting to know you," Tony said.

"Soon," she said. She looked at him and he remembered how smart she was, how much he loved that about her. She said, "If I put on this suit, you're not in charge, right? I get to decide what to do."

"Sure, I mean, I'll be in your ear, advising you, walking you through the important things to do to get away and be safe, but you're actually in control. If it comes to that. I don't think it'll come to that. But sometimes I get worried, especially about you," Tony said.

"You get worried or you have a bad feeling? An ominous feeling," Pepper said.

"Maybe, hard to tell my paranoia apart from my subconscious usually," Tony said.

"You worry too much," Pepper said. "You can just anticipate what might happen and how you would respond. I bet you're capable of it."

"Maybe," Tony said. He tapped the thick bandages on his chest. "Less to worry about now."

"I love you, too," she said. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. "I'll be back. We'll work this out."

He watched her shapely butt walk away before it occurred to him that he wasn't sure what they were going to work out. It was either a very long list or a very short one.

He fell back into his anesthetized haze.

He woke up to JARVIS shouting in his ear. "Mr. Stark. Something has happened at the Expo."

Tony tried to sit up and fell back down in pain. "Get me out of here. Get me there, now."

"No," JARVIS said. A nurse came in, carrying an Iron Man helmet delicately like it might explode. JARVIS directed her to put it on Tony's head.

Tony tried to focus. "Vanko's alive," he heard Rhodey say.

"Which one?"

"The one from Monaco," he heard Pepper said. "Is there another one we should be worried about?"

"No, what's going on? What's happening?"

"Hammer," Rhodey said. "And Vanko."

He could see out of Rhodey's suit and then out of Pepper's as she put hers on. "This is weird," Pepper said.

"Yup," Tony said. "Natasha and Rhodey have it under control, I'm sure, time for you to fly away and come here."

"It's the Stark Expo, put on by Stark Industries, your idea, I'm not leaving everyone here to die without helping. No disrespect to you, Rhodey."

"None taken, but Tony's right," Rhodey said.

"Shut up, both of you," Pepper said.

So Tony had to direct both of them through the ensuing battle and help them to defeat Vanko while Natasha made sure Hammer was arrested. Pepper said, "Aw, did you see that cute kid? I bet he thinks he defeated the drone."

"He also thinks he met me," Tony said.

"Yes, of course, because I'm this suit with the metal six pack and big spot to cushion my dick," Pepper said. "You don't have a six-pack, why does the suit?"

"I know why mine does," Rhodey said.

"Har har," Tony said.

Tony didn't want to admit, but Pepper had an immediate intuitive grasp when it came to using the suit. While Tony was not mentioning it, JARVIS was rushing in to suck up to Pepper by telling her.

"Thank you, JARVIS," Pepper said.

"I'm good at using the suit, too," Tony said. "Remember how I designed it?"

"Wow, someone's defensive," Pepper said.

"He really is," Rhodey said.

"I hate you both, get back here immediately," Tony said.

"Fly all the way to Switzerland in these suits?" Tony could hear Pepper rolling her eyes.

"Come on home," Tony said.

"We'll see you soon enough," Pepper said.

Tony nearly growled and took off his helmet. The two of them, he thought. They were the worst. Then the nurse came in and said something about an elevated heart rate and made Tony go straight to sleep.

When he finally woke up and shook off the grogginess, Pepper was walking into his hospital room. "I insist on going home," Tony said.

"You had heart surgery, you're having your third surgery to deal with that hole in your chest tomorrow, so no, you're not going home yet."

"How's the news? Did you save the world enough, people like us now?"

"Yes," Pepper said. "Actually."

"How nice for our stocks," Tony said. "I have some ideas, you know. About the future of Stark Industries."

"I'm excited already," Pepper said. She didn't sound excited at all.

"Tell me about using the suit," Tony said.

"I liked it," Pepper said. "I don't want to do it again. Maybe. I get why you love it. It was amazing to fly. But it was frightening. We couldn't save everyone, you know, people died."

"Because of Vanko," Tony said. "Not you."

"Do you believe that when you're in the suit?"

"Not really," Tony said. "But you're better than me."

"No, I'm different from you in complementary fashion," Pepper said. "We fit together well. I'm not, don't you put me on pedestal."

"I just think you're perfect," Tony said.

"I have plenty of room to improve," Pepper said. "Should I practice in the suit?"

"When I'm better, you and me will," Tony said.

After a fourth surgery for his poor gaping hole chest, they finally let Tony go home. He decided home would be New York City.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm recovered, completely," Tony said.

"Not exactly," Pepper said. "You're not cleared for vigorous exercise, putting your suit on, or sex."

"So nothing fun for me," Tony said. He pulled her closer, his hands tights on her hips. "But still fun for you can happen."

Pepper smiled and he sensed she was about to say no, or wait. He said, "We can non-vigorously kiss." He showed her a slow kiss, soft mouth, taken with the perfect taste of her. He kissed the pulse on her neck and behind her ear. He pushed her hair back and went back to her lovely lips.

She said, "Kissing, huh?"

"You're so articulate," Tony said. "I love how articulate you are."

"Oh, shut up and kiss me," Pepper said.

They kissed like teenagers on a television show, like nothing Tony had ever really done. He'd always dated older women until he was 17, so he went straight to the sex with very little prolonged making out. He skipped the good stuff, he decided, as Pepper sighed and wrapped her arms around his chest. Making out was awesome. Maybe making out with Pepper was awesome and other make outs wouldn't have been good.

Then he went back to thinking about Pepper's gorgeous skin and soft lips and her hands on his jaw.

He slipped his hand into her jeans and made her come with just his fingers. She fell back on the bed and stripped to nothing. She got in the bed next to him. "You're so sweet."

"I am sweetness incarnate."

Tony, as he said repeatedly to JARVIS, was basically only allowed to think. "All I can do."

"Yes, sir, it must be very difficult," JARVIS said.

Tony spun in his chair. He said, "So, Dad helped found SHIELD. And refused to tell me. Even though I guessed, thank you very much. I knew. I knew since I was 10. But why would my dad want me to know something he did I would be proud of?"

"Perhaps," JARVIS said. "Perhaps as it was because it was a covert operation."

"Yeah, because that makes more sense than my dad just being an asshole," Tony said.

"Why do you have these discussions with JARVIS?" Rhodey came into the lab, shaking his head. "Unlike JARVIS, I actually met your father."

Tony spun in his chair again. He was allowed to do that much at this point in his recovery. "You met him twice."

"He liked me," Rhodey said.

"He liked you more than me," Tony said.

"I actually wanted to hear his stories about Gabe Jones," Rhodey said.

"I never wanted to hear any of his stories and they were all about how great Steve Rogers was," Tony said. "Do you think I should have been more receptive to his drunken ramblings?"

"He was there at pivotal moments in history, moments that changed the world," Rhodey said. "He could be an asshole."

"We're pretty alike, aren't we?"

Rhodey pulled up a chair and sat down next to Tony. "Not really," he said. "Look, your father was born poor. You, on the other hand, were born into serious money. You could have coasted and been an asshole."

"Some might argue -"

"Shut up," Rhodey said. "It's a fundamental difference, Tony. For good and for bad."

"Silver spoon in my mouth," Tony said. "Pepper and I were talking about that time I tried to fly commercial."

"I remember," Rhodey said. He shook his head. "I remember reading the story in the Enquirer. Very unflattering pictures."

"Were they?" Tony shrugged. "I was fully dressed, I think I remember being fully dressed."

"You were wearing jodhpurs," Rhodey said.

"They looked good on me," Tony said. "You want me to tinker with your suit, don't you?"

"I had some ideas," Rhodey said.

"I will happily listen to what you have to say," Tony said.

Rhodey's ideas weren't bad. They weren't great but Tony could definitely make them work. He'd already decided on some improvements to Pepper's suit. And his own suit, which he couldn't forget about.

After Rhodey left, Tony turned to his latest project: hacking the history of SHIELD. He'd found two small ways in. He had to assume SHIELD had some pretty gifted security techs, but Tony felt he was certainly smarter. Almost probably. He used his small way in to plant tiny seeds that would send him the information he needed. Most of the information he needed. At least he could start spelunking before he got caught.

Tony made himself a schedule. He still couldn't have sex, or do anything more strenuous than meditate, but he could type. He spent an hour a day breaking into SHIELD, quietly, with subtlety and no traces. Then an hour brainstorming improvements in the three suits. Then a third hour working on creating clean energy from his new element. Then he ate something and then he drank some water and green smoothies and something disgusting with supplements Helen Cho had suggested. Then he wandered around the building, looking for Pepper or someone to distract him. Then he started again.

After a week, he'd found out a lot about his dad and SHIELD. He found out that more than a few people in SHIELD thought his father had been murdered. And his mother. He found a lot of shady shit he expected. He found some good things his father had done. And a picture of his father and Fury at the Stark mansion in 1983.

He took the six pack off of the suit he designed specifically for Pepper. He also added some black accents for her. He ignored everything Rhodey sent over about a new paint job for his suit, which he had decided to call War Machine. Tony thought it was a horrible name. He was going to let Rhodey have that one, though, since he had extracted a promise that none of the military types Rhodey called boss would ever touch his suit.

The clean energy was moving along great. Tony had JARVIS install his first designs in the top three floors. They all went off the grid without even a hiccup.

He finally got to have sex with Pepper. She was so beautiful naked, which he already knew. She said, "We get to do this multiple times, you know. No pressure. I feel like there's a lot of pressure on this, our first time. You lit candles. There's LED lights on DUM-E."

"Is the atmosphere too much? I can send DUM-E away," Tony said. He was naked, too. "Do I look okay? I used to have a much less scarred chest. And was more fit."

"You're beautiful," she said. She pressed up against him and kissed him. He still really loved the kissing, but it was even better when he could feel her bare breasts against his chest and he could hold her surprisingly firm ass. She pressed her hand against his thigh.

They'd already done the STD and contraception talk so they could just kiss and hold each other and then she lowered herself on his dick and everything was indeed perfect. He came first, his hands entangled in her hair. She came after some judicious use of fingers, sighing into his shoulder. "I love you," she said.

Pepper slept in his bed. He was surprised to see she wore silly t-shirts and sweatpants to bed. "I always pictured you in silk pajamas and lacy nightgowns," Tony said.

"Why? I don't even own those things," Pepper said.

"I've seen you when you first woke up before. We stayed in adjoining hotel rooms," Tony said.

"You never saw me when I first woke up," Pepper said. "Didn't you notice I was always already dressed?"

"Right, because you didn't want me to see you in your silk pajamas, or your lacy nightgown."

"Because I always woke up before you because you either slept in or never slept at all," Pepper said. "See, I knew you sleep naked, or in pajama pants, or in half of whatever you wore because you just passed out."

"No more," Tony said. "Now I sleep with you." He ran his hands up from her waist to right under her breasts.

The secret to all of it, Tony thought, was to just say what he needed and listen to Pepper. That was how he got to having his ticker working without a reactor in his chest, to having Pepper in his bed, with her adorable nipples and perfectly waxed pussy. Also she was incredibly smart and more organized than God. And he hadn't lost her yet.

Pepper said, "What are you thinking about?"

"You. The secret to my success."

"Am I the secret to your success?" Pepper smiled. She had a million dollar smile. Possibly billion dollar smile. Tony would pay everything he owned to have her smile at him because he made her smile.

"You are the secret to my happiness, the secret to my success is apparently just saying when I need help," Tony said. Now that Tony had completely recovered he was intensely focused on his clean energy reactors. He'd decided to add more floors to the building and have the whole thing run off the grid. Tony had already started to look at designs from architects for the soon to be built top 15 floors, which would have to have a place for Tony, Rhodey and maybe Pepper fly in in their suits. In the meantime, Tony had taken over 5 floors for a bedroom, a new garage/lab. DUM-E was already beeping around like it was home at last.

Happy had his own floor, too. Tony would have one for Rhodey but the man was stubborn about having his own space. Tony didn't understand it, he would have his own floor. He could eat, sleep, and do all sorts of Rhodey things without seeing the rest of them.

He wasn't technically completely recovered. He got tired quickly more than he liked. He would be excited about going to bed or living in his bed with Pepper there, but he didn't want to fall asleep near Pepper. He wanted to have lots of sex with Pepper and then fall asleep.

"I'll get better eventually," Tony said.

"You're pretty better now," Pepper said. "I know, you think you're not up to snuff."

"Up to snuff? Why is that a phrase? Don't give me the actual explanation, JARVIS," Tony said. "I am too easily tired. I used to work for hours and hours and live on no sleep, now I can barely stay awake for a whole day anymore."

"That's not a bad thing," Pepper said. "You used to live in a less than healthy manner."

"I work out. I work out constantly," Tony said.

"I know," Pepper said. "I totally know, I have to hire and vet all of them."

"Well, there won't be so much turnover now," Tony said.

Pepper said, "You think you had all that turnover because you slept with them? It's not that at all. Two of your yoga instructors were paid by the Enquirer or TMZ to get embarrassing or revealing pictures of you. One of your pilates teachers was going to try to freelance the pictures. Your Krav Maga instructor was obsessed with you, and had plans to get your semen for a baby."

"I have a horrible life," Tony said. "I don't even realize how horrible it is because of you."

"I try," Pepper said. "We have to hire someone new to do all that because I don't have time."

"You should never have had to do it," Tony said. "Man, someone's been doing that job all my life, I mean, before you. I don't even notice how much worse everything could be. I never notice."

"I think your parents did it because they loved you," Pepper said.

"And Obie wanted me to make him weapons and money," Tony said.

"So now we just need to find you an excellent assistant," Pepper said. "I'm already having nightmares."

"Maybe I can do it," Tony said.

"No, you can't," Pepper said. "I love you too much for that."

Tony fell asleep too early again. He woke up and his physical therapist slash pilates instructor showed up 30 minutes later. He listened intently, did the exercises, and wondered if this woman was thinking about selling pictures to TMZ or wanted to have his miracle baby. He only trusted the people around him because he knew Pepper protected him. He didn't protect her very well. He put her in a suit and let her fight bad guys.

Granted, no one could tell Pepper to not do something and he couldn't exactly be a big strong man and order her around. That was some macho bullshit fantasy he knew better than to ever articulate. He loved Pepper because she wasn't any kind of fantasy.

The next two times Pepper put on the suit wasn't because of bad guys, it was rescue efforts. She volunteered for those. She liked sweeping through flood waters to find people and get them someplace safe. He debriefed her each time and then altered her suit the way she asked. He improved on her requests, of course, she didn't really get everything he could do. He could do a lot.

"My parents were murdered," Tony said. He'd just woken up and he remembered his secret to his success. He should always tell Pepper the truth.

"Are you sure?" Pepper said. She came out of the bathroom holding her electric toothbrush. He could hear the motor on it running.

"I'm sure," Tony said. "SHIELD is sure. No one bothered to tell me, which, frankly, I am not surprised about. But you'd think at some point, someone would have told me. Do you know how long I thought … I thought a lot of things. And something's wrong. By the way. There are shadow files in shadow files and locked files. Something's rotten in the state of the Triskelion is what I'm saying."

"Also, your dad wasn't drunk and didn't cause your mother's death," Pepper said. She turned off her toothbrush and sat down next to him. "Who murdered them?"

"Soviet agent, some kind of spy, who knows - it's all rumors," Tony said. "I guess it matters. I've been more dwelling on the radical readjustment of my impression of my father. I was wrong. I was always wrong."

Pepper touched his neck softly, smoothed his hair. "Baby," she said.

"Hey," he said. "You're very soothing."

"Well, I love you," Pepper said. "You know, Dr. Cho recommended a therapist, she says it's very helpful for the no longer gaping hole in your chest."

"You really want me to see a shrink," Tony said.

"Me and Dr. Cho," Pepper said. "It's one idea."

"I finished working on your suit. I didn't put in anything that lets me take it over and fly you far far away from danger. I think we can both agree that's progress for me," Tony said.

"I'm not giving you credit for recognizing I'm an adult who can make choices on her own," Pepper said. "Is it weird your dad's not the cause of your mother's death?"

"Maybe I should upgrade his tombstone?"

"You could. It's pretty big already," Pepper said.

"Jarvis made me," Tony said.

Tony added more exercise, more getting fit. He took every supplement Dr. Cho suggested and even went to see the damn therapist. He got better.

He only went to see the therapist once, but he went.

Tony kept spelunking at SHIELD. He'd decided on his future objectives, one in honor of his father, one for himself. He was going to find Captain America's body. He was going to investigate when Obie went bad, or if he'd always been bad. He also monitored how Agent Natasha was doing, just checking up. Pepper liked her, that was his reason.

"You think she's hot," Pepper said.

"Sure, but I have you." Tony smiled. "I've tasked the satellites to the approximate area where Cap's plane went down and where it might have, you know, migrated with tides and weather. On the bright side, thanks to global warming, the plane might just pop up when the next glacier melts."

"Would he be alive?"

"He would be 100% almost dead. But that super serum was a hell of a drug. There's a chance we could revive him, sure." Tony frowned.

"And your Obie quest?" Pepper's face was carefully blank.

"How do you feel about him?"

"You know Happy never liked him," Pepper said, looking down at her tablet.

"Are you Happy? Because that's some unbelievably good plastic surgery," Tony said. He sat down next to her on the couch, pushing her hips a little.

She sighed. "I liked him, okay? I never had a bad feeling, not even once. I thought he was a good boss. He was better than Killian, frankly. It makes me feel stupid."

"It's not like I suspected, Pep," Tony said.

"But you don't generally suspect, you're not suspicious. You don't offer up much of yourself. I'm always suspicious," Pepper said. "I've always been suspicious, since I started working for you."

"He wasn't walking around cackling and tugging on his evil mustache, Pepper, it's not like any of us really suspected. My dad didn't and he was a damn founder of SHIELD," Tony said.

"Just Happy," Pepper said.

"Well, now we know to always trust Happy's instincts," Tony said. "Except when it comes to important things."

"Maybe we should check with Rhodey on his feelings about Obie, and not rely on just Happy," Pepper said. "I wonder what Natasha would have said."

"I knew you liked her," Tony said.

He knew he'd really finally recovered when he went down on Pepper to her complete satisfaction. Pepper liked a long build up, lots of tongue and judicious use of his fingers, a little teeth. It was an important and worthwhile endeavor. Plus, he loved all the time spent up close and very personal with Pepper's perfect pink parts.


	4. Chapter 4

He loved putting the suit on and getting to fly again. He hadn't realized how painful it had been before using the suit, the drain on him from the palladium. He couldn't stop smiling, even after JARVIS made fun of him with his dry AI wit. Just for him, some dick decided to hold a bunch of hostages in a bank. It was a cakewalk of a save and he even got a little adulation, let's go Iron Man. That part was fun, too.

"You could have called for help," Rhodey said.

Tony was tinkering with the War Machine suit. "You really want a big gun literally mounted on your shoulder?"

"I really do," Rhodey said.

"You're like a small boy," Tony said.

"I'm like a man, which I am."

"Yeah, you are," Tony said.

Tony put down the wrench. "Something is weird."

"You mean you? I have a lot of notes on this one."

"SHIELD. Something definitely weird at SHIELD. You know I broke into their network. I've been looking for a few things, mostly trying to figure out more about Howard Stark," Tony said. "The man, the myth, the Founder. But then I started trying to see if anything in the SHIELD files would help me know what happened with Obie. Did you ever like him?"

"I liked him when I first met him," Rhodey said.

"Great, Happy is the only winner among us," Tony muttered. "I can't find a sign that SHIELD realized Stane was bad. Which is a real failure of intelligence since our own records show he'd been selling weapons under the table for years. Even before Dad died. So how does SHIELD miss that? They were watching me close enough to know when I was sick and I hadn't told anyone at that point."

Rhodey sighed. Tony installed the guns Rhodey wanted.

He kept working on the taking the entire building off the grid. After the New York City one, it would be all the Stark Industries buildings, every factory, every office. He'd have something for every place he ever sold weapons to, instead this time he would make them free from needing gas or oil.

He and Rhodey flew off at least every two weeks to some disaster or some asshole with a weapons cache who thought he could kill whomever he wanted. No one built another suit, but there were plenty of assholes who thought they had to take on Iron Man to make an impression.

Then he went back to the lab.

"I forgot," Pepper said. "That you can be so quiet. I feel like the past few years, whenever we're together, there's never silence. But now." She was gloriously naked in their bed, a bed they shared and was theirs jointly.

He was still silent sometimes. He was still in his garage or in his lab or cutting his fingers on sharp metal, or getting tiny chemical burns on his palms. JARVIS would say, "Sir, I believe I did warn you." Not like Tony minded that much.

Pepper said, "Are there new things about me you're learning?"

"Besides the sex stuff?"

"Yes," she said. He felt her smile against his stomach. Dr. Cho sent a sort of binder Tony was supposed to wear to further heal his chest. She'd tutted when he said "binder" - "Tony, it's so much more than that." It was definitely more than a souped up ace bandage. It was also painful but a mild kind of pain, on par with a tiny chemical burn on his palm.

"I didn't know you didn't sleep in lacy nightgowns," Tony said. He stroked her hair and she nearly purred. "I'm going to make this all about me, which is not surprising, but I'm definitely learning that I've spent a lot of my life, most of my life, not really appreciating people as separate from me. I mean, of course, I knew the world didn't revolve me, and everyone had their own little lives, but the act of actually being open and interested in other people's little lives is new to me. Your life is not little, of course."

"You are not as much of an asshole as that," Pepper said. "You make friends with people, me, Rhodey, Happy, just a few examples. You researched my whole biography a week after I started working for you."

"But I feel like that wasn't real, and this is real," Tony said. "I was that much of an asshole. I've made my fortune but I started with a huge fortune to begin with. You don't really know people in that context."

Pepper said, "You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes. You're indulging in a lot of self-pity. Or revisionist history of your life. Yes, you were rich and famous from day one, and part of that was that you were a genius. How old were you at MIT? So I acknowledge that all would be alienating, but you still have friends, real friends, and none of them are interested in sucking up to you."

"Wait, you said suck up to me, not suck me? Because -"

"I miss the silence," Pepper said. "Here's an example, you've never dated teenagers."

"Even when I was one," Tony said. His rule had been 21 or older until he was 21 then he moved it up to 22 and left it there. No sexual partners younger than 22. At 38, he made the rule no one more than 17 years younger so theoretically it would be creeping up in the future. But it didn't matter because Pepper was his future and barring some horrible time travel mishap, she would always be the same number of years younger than which was far fewer than 17. "That is an incredibly low bar. I don't sleep with people I could conceivably have fathered. Go me! Signal the parade."

"Why don't you?"

"Why didn't I? Because It's pretty much just you for the rest of my life." He felt Pepper start but he decided to keep talking. It had to be obvious to her where he stood. "I didn't date teenagers because I prefer to have sex with people who are mature, more than I am."

Pepper said, "Did you really just say you were only going to have sex with me for the rest of the life?"

"Seemed pretty obvious even before I said it, frankly," Tony said. "You're you and I'm me and who else is there? At least for me."

She sat up and kissed him and that tabled the conversation for a little bit. When it came to Pepper, Tony's favorite position was any one where he could look in her eyes. She made the most ridiculous face when she had an orgasm, it was a trip.

Pepper decided to resume the conversation after they'd both had a bracing shower and cleaned up. She said, "You prefer having even one night stands with people who are mature which to you means they challenge you. They don't roll over for you - " She held up her finger. "Please don't say anything about depending on the situation."

Rhodey brought him up to the roof of a downtown skyscraper to talk a few days later. Tony said, "Your suit seems to be working great. I think I can improve the drag, though, even with that monstrous phallus of a gun you insisted on mounting on your shoulder."

"It's a big gun, Tony," Rhodey said. "Look, it bothered me what you said about Stane. I know you prefer to get all your information by hacking into computers -"

"No one says hacking anymore," Tony said.

"I tried a few different avenues. There were people who were suspicious of Stane, for a long time. But they got shut down by people in SHIELD and in the agency."

"Which agency? FBI, NSA, FEMA?" Tony paced a little, which always felt a little strange in the suit. It was made for flying, walking was a secondary mode. He should work on that, he noted in his head.

"CIA," Rhodey said.

"Oh, that ex of yours, got it, that's not a different avenue. If I had dated someone who worked for the NSA, I would have asked them," Tony said.

"You don't date, Tony," Rhodey said. "And I bet you do have people you had sex with once who work all over the government."

"I date now," Tony said.

"Yes, you are definitely in a relationship with Pepper, good work," Rhodey said. He sounded 85% sincere. "It's fucked up, Tony. Why is SHIELD shutting down legitimate questions about Stane?"

"Do we know who it was from SHIELD?"

"It happened 3 or 4 times before people got the message, looks like 2 different officers at SHIELD."

"Fury?" Tony stopped pacing.

"No, not Fury."

"Send me the names, I'll try to hack their files. And I'll ask my friend Natasha for help."

"She isn't your friend," Rhodey said. "She'd probably be more help if I ask her. I've got it covered."

There was an earthquake to the East, over an ocean or two. Pepper called Rhodey and hustled Tony onto a jet. "We can help, so we're going to help," Pepper said.

"Of course," Rhodey said.

"This is the kind of suit usage I can get behind," Pepper said. "I called, of course, to get approval."

"That's guy a dick," Tony said.

"Yup," Pepper said. "I called and asked about Iron Man, War Machine and possibly someone else."

"You haven't picked a superhero name, Pepper, you have to get on that," Tony said.

"I've put the damn suit on three times, this will be the fourth, I don't need a name. But we can make a difference here," she said. "The dick didn't exactly approve, but you know, he knows in advance."

"Do we need to go over basic principles in rescue mission?" Rhodey stood up like he was about to lecture.

"JARVIS can handle it," Tony said.

"I'm good," Pepper said.

"You two are assholes. I'm trained to do this," Rhodey said. He was adorable.

The plane hovered while the three of them suited up and flew out. As Tony had said, JARVIS had a good handle on basic principles. They went to the city where a row of buildings had collapsed and houses built into a hill that had melted into the ground. They started on the places that weren't stable enough for the rescuers to get in. "The suit can handle the weight," Rhodey said. "Don't worry, Pepper."

"I won't," Pepper said. She flew off to the farthest building. Tony resisted the urge to follow her, she was good at everything she did. He'd built that suit just for her and it would probably withstand a bomb dropped directly on it.

Tony focused on his buildings. He scanned everywhere, looking for any survivors. He found four people still breathing, trapped in pockets. He let JARVIS take care of the calculations and flew where the AI told him to go. He brought all four out and took them to more stable ground where the Red Cross was. Rhodey was flying out, Pepper was flying in. There were people milling around and Tony was reminded of every disaster site he'd gone to in the last year and a half. Take one breath, exhale and the whole world's changed.

It took five hours for Tony, Rhodey, and Pepper to get people cleared out and the debris shifted for safety. The last two hours were mostly about moving corpses. Tony never liked that part.

Pepper was the only one to end on a high note, she found a baby still alive, sheltered by the little one's parents. It was clear from the coms that Pepper was sniffling but beside saying, "I love you," Tony let her process the way she wanted. Pepper, unlike Tony, was actually good at saying what she wanted. She was straightforward.

When they were done they went back to the jet. They got out of their suits and landed in Seoul. Pepper had called ahead and made their reservations at her favorite hotel.

Tony got out of the scalding shower and said his first words to Pepper in some hours. They were, "Did you get Rhodey the fancy suite, too?"

He'd let Pepper shower first, she was on the bed, picking at the food. She said, "It's slightly less fancy and a floor down."

"How you doin' there, sweetie?"

"It's not the greatest day," Pepper said. "But that's the job."

"Not your job, honey," Tony said.

"If we go much longer, will you call me 'darling' or 'junebug'?"

"Junebug is highly unlikely. I was raised in many places, but none of them were Mobile, Alabama," Tony said.

Pepper said, "Only highly unlikely? If I'm inarticulate enough and look super sad, will you bust it out?"

"If you want me to, Sweetpea, I would absolutely do it," Tony said. He sat down next to her and started eating off her plates. She'd obviously ordered for both of them.

"I don't think I'd be comforted by being called 'junebug,' Tony," Pepper said. "I'm okay. This is how this job works, even if it's not my day job. It's a very important job and we have the suits to do it. I'm not used to being so close to death, but I know what I'm getting into." She leaned over and kissed him, a quiet moment of passion.

He said, "I love you, Pepper Potts."

"You're lucky to have me," she said, with a sad smile.

"I know I am," he said. "Let's make sweet love."

"Are you trying to make me laugh?"

Tony smiled. "A little? Also I really want to make sweet love to you."

Using satellite photos, because Tony owned more than one satellite, he was sure he was getting closer to finding good ol' Captain America. He tapped his finger idly on the screen and the suspicious grey blob. "Send an unmanned," Tony said to JARVIS.

Tony looked at his watch, stroked the band. He loved a good watch, a beautiful watch. He spent too much money on them, which was something Pepper always said. Which reminded Tony he still didn't have a new assistant and Pepper had really wanted him to hire this kid from Detroit.

Tony had said, "Why don't you hire him?"

She'd said, "I already have an assistant."

Tony had pointed out she could have two, he could have used two, so Pepper had snatched Detroit off the table. And so, Tony was in need of two assistants and there was no one he liked for the job.

He fiddled and tinkered and directed the workmen, work people actually, remaking the building into a shining beacon of clean energy. One with the Stark name on it. "So it's even brighter," Pepper said, clearly mocking him.

"At least it's only five letters," Tony said.

"Was the Stark name initially much longer? Starkevich? Starifino?" She had her arms draped on his shoulders, her head against his. He still felt drunk when she was that close and relaxed with him.

"Pretty sure it was always Stark," Tony said. "Or not, Dad never talked about his parents or where they came from."

"Surely someone's written a biography of him," Pepper said, like it was just occurring to her.

"3 or 4," Tony said. "I never read them but you should. You can tell me then."

"Why didn't you read them?"

The secret to Tony's success was to tell Pepper the truth and articulate his feelings. He said, "I didn't want to learn anything bad about my mother and I didn't want to know anything about my father he hadn't told me himself, so therefore, nothing."

"You're very stubborn," Pepper said. That was not just occurring to her.

"Defiant, rebellious, an asshole, pick your word," Tony said.

He didn't ask how Nick Fury got around security to storm into his lab. He probably glared really hard at the guards and they wilted. "Nick," Tony said. "You seem furious."

"You think you're funny?"

"Yes, absolutely," Tony said. "Why are you mad at me?"

"Why are you trying to find out about NSA interference with SHIELD?"

"Natasha told you," Tony said. "That's a bit of simplification, you know."

"Of course she told me," Fury said. "What's so interesting to you, Stark?"

"Interesting? It's interesting to me that other intelligence agencies figured out something that was, in retrospect, pretty obvious long before SHIELD did, that Stane was dirty," Tony said, with a little fury himself. He could appreciate that the cave and the torture had forged him into something better but he wasn't exactly thrilled it had all been done to him, not because he was rich and in the wrong place, but because his father's second best friend had wanted him dead.

"That's not what I saw in the records," Fury said.

"Then you need to look closer," Tony said. "How hard was it for you to find out I was dying? Once I actually looked at the books and Stane's computer, it was obvious. And he'd been doing it a long time. At least for the last ten years. Maybe even for the last 20. So you tell me, why didn't SHIELD know?"

"The answer is not that we were covering it up," Fury said.

"What is the answer, Nick?"

"The answer is for you to stop thinking you know everything." Fury shook his head and stormed out.

Tony called Rhodey. "You got Natasha in trouuuuble," he sang.

"I heard," Rhodey said. "But she did find something. She's worried."

"She admitted she's worried to you? I'm scared, Rhodey, I'm that guy in the horror movie screaming at the unfolding terror," Tony said. He called up the schematics for his new mark 11 Iron Man suit. It was always reassuring to play with that.

"Well, I gathered that from her partner," Rhodey said.

"Her husband? Wife?"

"Don't let Pepper hear you sounding so disappointed," Rhodey said. "No, her SHIELD partner, the guy who brought her in from the cold assassin place. Hawkeye. He's not as talkative as Natasha, but he's slightly more demonstrative."

"Are you dating Black Widow? Is that why you're subtly telling me to back off?" Tony fiddled with the feet of the armor. He still needed to make them work better for flight and walking, for air and ground.

"Nope," Rhodey said, and hung up.

Tony used his quiet little SHIELD hack to call up Hawkeye's profile and scanned the man's history, such as was listed there. He said, "JARVIS, can you get me the schematics on that bow and arrow set up? I think we can do better."

"I'm sure he'll be very appreciative," JARVIS said, communicating disapproval.

"Despite what you think, everybody loves gifts."


	5. Chapter 5

That night he told Pepper what the unmanned Stark bot had reported back. "You found Captain America?" Pepper was putting on some array of frightening night creams. Half of them she washed off after 20 minutes. Tony's night time moisturizer and hair oil only took 5 minutes to apply, tops.

"I found the plane he crashed in and probably his rotting corpse, yes," Tony said. "I'm going to have it hauled back here."

"That super soldier serum," Pepper said. "It was very powerful."

"Yes," Tony said. "As my dad never stopped telling me."

"So maybe he's just almost dead, it's in the ice, he could be frozen. And you know what they say - you're not dead until you're warm and dead," Pepper said. She was now doing something to her hair.

"That sounds horrifying," Tony said. "Hopefully he's nice and dead and hasn't spent the last 60 years being almost dead and in incredible pain."

"Maybe it was just like falling asleep. What if you could bring him back to life? SHIELD could help," Pepper said.

"Did you miss the part where Fury is mad at me for questioning SHIELD and even Natasha is worried about what they've found? Look, when the frozen plane gets here, we will deal with it then, but for right now, I'm keeping all of this on the down low. You know who we should call? Dr. Cho."

"Oh, I like that, I can't wait to see Helen again."

"Assuming he's not a rotting corpse, sure, we'll call her," Tony said.

In the middle of everything, something happened in the desert, the American one. Tony watched the footage over and over again, the stuff Jane Foster had recorded. There were indeed other worlds, there were people there who were so advanced as to seem like gods.

Tony went to visit the good doctor and brought Pepper because she was infinitely better at meeting new people. Pepper denied that when they were in the jet. "What I am better at is maintaining relationships. And that's something you can work on, you know."

Tony just looked at her to communicate that he wasn't going to do that, not at all. Except where the relationship was with Pepper.

Jane Foster was wary until she got on the topic she loved and then they were off to the races. She explained what Thor had explained, about the tree and the bridges. "You just, Thor, he's just this guy," Tony said. "He's also the figure of Norse myth, and the reason we call Thursday Thursday instead of fourth day or something more logical."

"He's not just this guy," Foster's busty assistant said. She seemed nice. She also interrupted which was something he liked in a person. "He's seriously ripped."

Jane made an impatient sound. She probably made that one a lot. She said, "Yes. Sufficiently advanced enough technology would be perceived as god-like back then, and even now."

"So he's just an alien," Tony said. He blinked. "Okay then. How can we help?"

"We have SHIELD funding now," Jane said.

"How can we help in a way that isn't linked to an international agency that has already taken your equipment once?"

Jane nodded. She said, "You do make weapons."

"Not anymore," Pepper said. "We're two months away from a clean energy source roll-out and we can supply you right now with a generator that won't quit. We make phones and tablets and medical technology." She glanced at Tony. "And now we're interested in your work to meet aliens."

"Very attractive human shaped aliens," Busty said. "I say yes, I want a Stark phone."

"Darcy," Jane said.

"You can just have one," Tony said. He tapped out an order for his most recent model on his phone. "Be here tomorrow."

"Thank you," Busty said.

Pepper said, "Dr. Foster, let's talk." She smiled and Foster smiled back like she didn't even know why she was doing it. The Pepper effect.

The two ladies walked one way and Tony sat down across from Busty. "Hey," he said. "Are you looking for a job?"

"Are you just hitting on me?"

"Not at all, I'm with the blonde. You're very attractive and if you're over 23 and I wasn't with the blonde, there would be some definite flirting, but I'm genuinely interested in your job prospects."

"I'm suspicious," she said.

"I completely understand," Tony said. "Here's the thing, I haven't had an assistant since Pepper became CEO and she keeps trying to find one for me but they're all very -"

"Flat-chested?" Busty was not smiling.

"See, none of them would interrupt me like you just did. They were way too reverent. I prefer a very strong lack of reverence in people I surround myself with. I would feel mildly bad about depriving Jane of your important assisting, but you can still be friends. And Pepper will find her someone amazing," Tony said.

"Like she did for you?" Busty was leaning forward as she said it.

Tony smiled. "I'm much harder to work for than your Dr. Foster. Pepper's really good at that stuff, she's not great at looking for an assistant for me. I think she's trying to hire someone who's like she is, but she doesn't get which parts of her that made her great at the job."

"If I take this job, do I get to be CEO in a few years?"

"Only if Pepper gives the job up. It's not an upwardly mobile kind of position, except for the pay, the exposure, your ability to capitalize on your influence." Tony stood up. "Text me an answer on your new phone tomorrow."

"You haven't told me any details," Darcy said.

"Assume the money is obscene, the benefits are extravagant, the hours are ludicrous, and you have to put up with me," Tony said.

Pepper glared at him on the flight home. "Can you not try to hire the assistants of people we're meeting with? It's not helpful."

"She's perfect for me," Tony said. "She seems to think I'm a dick, which is a good thing."

"I'll remember to put that in the next job listing," Pepper said.

"I don't need a job listing, honey, I think I've found the one."

He looked down at his phone. "Wow, and I was right, we found the plane Captain America went down in."

"Oh my God," Pepper said. "Is the corpse in there?"

"Let's find out," Tony said. He turned on the video connection and waved to Pepper to sit besides him. "Let's go in, guys. And any gals who are there."

He and Pepper watched the descent into the plane and both gasped the minute they saw the frozen corpse. Or not corpse. Pepper kept saying "Warm and dead."

"Pack it all up," Tony said. "And include the popsicle, keep it at the same temperature."

It was prohibitively expensive, so much so even Tony noticed, but he just made a mental note to speed up the rollout of the new energy generators.

He sat in a very cold room with Dr. Cho and few other experts he'd rounded up and forced to sign ironclad NDAs. The consensus was that Cap was indeed not dead because he wasn't warm and dead. Then the debate started about unfreezing the poor guy. Tony tapped his fingers on an icy table. He texted Darcy, his new assistant, to tell Pepper they were going to need a damn good psychiatrist because Cap was about to wake up in 2011 and someone needed to help prepare him for things like the internet and color movies.

Darcy texted him back that she had just looked it up and she was upset she couldn't say he was wrong about the color movies thing. She also texted "Maybe prepare him for the whole thing where we consider people of color and also women specifically, both of color and white, to be people now?"

Tony texted back, "Do you know nothing about the Howling Commandos? My father is trying to rise from his grave to set you straight about this."

It took days for the doctors to decide and then another week for them to actually do it. The 5 psychiatrists Pepper had gotten had carefully planned how to tell Cap he was alive, there was an internet, and nearly everyone he knew was dead.

"The Captain America? For real?" Rhodey looked shocked. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"For reasons we've already discussed, we're currently keeping him off SHIELD's radar. I didn't want you saying anything to your new BFF, Clint." Tony was back in his lab. He got hourly updates on Cap, though he hadn't met the man yet. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

"I wouldn't have told either of them, Tony," Rhodey said. He looked around the lab like Cap was hiding there somewhere. "Where is he?"

"Stark facility in upstate New York," Tony said. "They're re-integrating him into society, giving him time to mourn, some other argble bargle the shrinks said."

"How much of his blood have you taken?"

"Not one drop," Tony said. "Wouldn't let any of the doctors do it, either. Even you heard that story from Dad."

Rhodey paced a little and then looked at the new iteration of the War Machine suit Tony was working on.

Pepper had met Captain America. "He called me ma'am and then he called me Pepper." She was blushing a little. "He's very attractive."

Rhodey had met Captain America. "He's a good man," Rhodey said seriously. "What exactly are you planning to do with him?"

"I'm not planning anything for him, it's all up to him," Tony said. "If he wants to take off and explore the Northwest Territories, become a mercenary fighting in the Chechen Republic, any path he takes, he can go for it. I'm taking care of these steps because my Dad would want me to. But he's in charge."

"Why haven't you met him?"

"My childhood anti-hero? I don't want to," Tony said. "I kinda want to. But there's a lot of weight in this."

"That's a ridiculous reason," Rhodey said.

"You're so supportive," Tony said. "I don't know how I function without you being the wind beneath my wings."


	6. Chapter 6

The inherent I dare you in Rhodey's words finally forced Tony to get in his car and drive up to the facility. He breezed through the extensive security he'd set up and drove up the hill. He was midway up when he saw a perfect male specimen jogging in generic sweats from Target. He'd have to talk to someone about that.

Tony stopped his car and got out. He waved with a stupid rictus of a grin on his face. The former Capsicle came up to him. "Hey," Steve Rogers said. "You must be Howard's son."

"Call me Tony," Tony said. They shook hands in a manly manner.

"I guess I have you to thank for all this," Steve said.

"Just doing it what my dad would have wanted," Tony said. "That's clear, right? I'm not in charge of you, you're free to go whenever you want. Whenever you feel healthy. And I'll happily provide you with some seed money if you need that, of course. Your backpay alone has to be a pretty big paycheck. Do you want me to send a lawyer over to deal with that?"

Steve nodded and crossed his ridiculously chiseled arms. "I get the impression I'm kind of a secret up here."

"Yeah," Tony said. "I didn't want you exploited, you know, some government agency wakes you up, makes you feel liable to them. You've served your time, you can do whatever you want."

"Oh, I know. The shrinks have been really clear about that," Steve said.

"But you probably feel a sense of responsibility," Tony said. "And want to keep doing good."

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic," Steve said.

"A little bit," Tony said. "My dad talked about you a lot, there was a little bit of competition. In my head."

"I liked Howard, too," Steve said. "It's amazing, everything he did and you've done."

Tony shrugged. "I thought, for a long time, I was doing good. Dad built weapons, I built weapons. I guess there's a place for that, but I can't do it anymore. No offense."

"Should I be offended? From what the internet said, or I read on the internet, the problem wasn't the weapons, it was that they were being sold to the wrong people," Steve said.

"Who's deciding who's the wrong people? Sure, I can say, the US is always right, and sketchy so called freedom fighters in the hills of Afghanistan are wrong. But am I really sure? Who installed the Taliban, after all?" Tony shifted his stance, desperately wanting to fidget. He had no intention of doing so in front of Steve Rogers, Captain of all America.

"From my reading, the Taliban training from the CIA hasn't been completely established," Steve said. "But, I get it, I see your point. I don't think you should make weapons again. Energy that everyone can use sounds a lot better. But you still have a mission."

"If I have a mission, it's to make sure no one else has a mission," Tony said. "That sounds confusing."

"I don't know how we wipe out all war or crime in the world, that sounds like a lot to do," Steve said.

"You're thinking my girlfriend is better company than me," Tony said.

"I liked Pepper, she seems really great," Steve said.

"You and Pepper don't have our history," Tony said. "Yes, I know all our history is on my side."

"You were born 25 years after I last saw your father," Steve said.

"Took him a long time to settle down, much longer than me," Tony said.

Steve nodded. "Do I get to see the suit? I've only seen it on TV."

"You're excited by the suit?"

"It looks cool," Steve said.

Tony smiled. "It is pretty cool, of course."

He had the case out and did the dramatic put on. "Cool, right?" Tony loved flying, damn it. When he landed on the ground, he popped the helmet.

"That definitely looks cool. I guess it's not one size fits all?"

"Putting you in the suit is basically overkill to the power of overkill, Rogers," Tony said. "This is nice, being almost as tall as you."

"Hey, I remember being short and I was shorter than you," Steve said.

"God bless decent nutrition," Tony said.

"You grew up a Stark, you had better than decent nutrition," Steve said.

Tony laughed. "I sometimes had much less than decent nutrition. But yes, we stopped boiling all our food and ate more vegetables. And meat. Manly meat from many animals. Though my mom had went through a brief phase of being a vegetarian, drove Jarvis crazy. And my dad, which was probably half the reason she did it. Then she decided to keep her own chickens. She named them all after characters in her favorite Agatha Christie novels. God, I wonder what happened to those chickens?"

"You don't know?"

"No," Tony said. "Jarvis took care of them, but I wasn't living there with he passed and I don't know if the people who went to settle everything did with the chickens. They weren't the same ones, but they were descendants. I should ask Pepper."

"I'm glad the CEO of Stark Industries still has to deal with tracking with chickens," Steve said.

"Oh, that's an excellent point," Tony said. "I'll ask my actual assistant. Hell, I have a plane, want a flight around the city?"

"Yes," Steve said. His eagerness shined all over his perfectly symmetrical face. "I haven't really been out much."

"You can, you know. Just ask someone, they'll drive you around. You don't have a driver's license yet, but once all the other stuff gets tackled, you can have a car. Or a motorcycle, that's probably more your speed, right? Anyway, anything you want."

As they got into the Starkjet, Steve said, "You're being very generous."

"Just one more attempt to get Dad to say he loves me and is proud of me that's guaranteed to fail." Tony grinned.

That night, he told Pepper, "He's okay, I guess. Too well-adjusted, frankly."

"We did hire the best shrinks we could find who would sign the NDA and commute to upstate New York every day," Pepper said. "By the way, your name was always Stark."

"You read books about my dad," Tony said.

"I read all the books. I even read that new one about you that just came out," she said. She was on her side, looking at him with her pretty eyes, her hand on his chest.

"They're all hackjobs," Tony said.

"The new one on you tried a little at least," Pepper said. "So your family was always Stark. Your grandfather came from Italy, your grandmother was from Portugal. They met in the neighborhood where your dad grew up. Many people suspect your grandmother was Jewish."

"Well, that explains all the Zionist insults," Tony said.

"You and your father both sold weapons to Israel, I think that's the source of those," Pepper said. "It's difficult to say if they had other relatives. I don't suppose your dad mentioned any?"

"What do you think?"

Pepper exhaled and started playing with her hair. She said, "Howard was like you, clearly brilliant even as a toddler. But you know, 1920s, harder to get ahead from where he lived. Nevertheless by age 21 he launched Stark Industries. You know most of this. Your mom was born in 1945 and wanted to be a mechanical engineer, but it wasn't the easiest for a woman. She met your father when she was 20 and she was yelling at him for giving a free lecture in a space open only to men. Your father took one look and knew that the was woman he was going to marry. They went out to lunch."

"That's not exactly right," Tony said. "This one I know. First, Dad tried putting all the blame on Jarvis who was standing right there and told him to stuff it. I think Dad tried to say he always spoke in integrated spaces and Jarvis must have forgotten. Then after Jarvis said it was certainly not true, Mom called Dad even more names. Then he asked her out to lunch. They went to some sandwich place in Boston, Dad tried to buy that diner for years and years. Guy refused to sell. But Dad kept trying. Also, Mom confessed to me that she and Dad had sex the first time in the first week they knew each other."

"She told you that?"

Tony smiled. "She was tipsy, I was 10 or 11? We were watching TV and she said something about how she was never as good a girl as they thought."

Pepper kissed his cheek. She said, "I read a lengthy internet piece speculating Howard Stark was gay."

"Noooooo," Tony said. "Bisexual, possibly. But I know he and Mom were having sex up until a month before they died. Were murdered."

"Oh god, did you walk in on them?"

Tony shook his head. "Worse. We had excellent security in the house, in all the houses. I was checking to see if Dad had hidden some of the good booze somewhere I didn't know about and instead, I got him and Mom, on a table. I stopped watching, believe you me."

"That's sweet," Pepper said.

"But just me instead of the eight kids Mom wanted. Because Dad spent too much time exposing his sperm to all sorts of bad things. They didn't have the technology for IVF but they did narrow it down to being Dad's fault. Still one of his little Howards got through."

Pepper kissed him again. She ran her hand through his hair. "I'm very glad that one did."

"I love you, too," Tony said. "Dad did generally only speak to integrated audiences. He was very insistent that Stark Industries hired the best people, period. He actually did have a very integrated workforce."

"That was in the book, too," Pepper said. "Books."

The next morning Tony woke up at 5 am, alone again. Pepper had gotten up at 3:30 am for an international call and then went into the office. Tony sat up and looked over to the corner of the room. "Good morning, Nick."

"You found Captain America," Nick said. He didn't sound angry.

"Yup," Tony said. "How long you been watching me sleep? Do you think I'm pretty?"

"You unfroze Captain America and hid him away."

Tony said, "The man was asleep for 70 years. I thought he needed some alone time to get caught up on the world, talk to some great shrinks."

"Captain America," Nick said.

"There's something wrong with SHIELD, Nick. You know it. I know it."

Nick stood up. "I have Natasha on it."

"Well, then it's all better. I'm not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not. Huh," Tony said. "Did you bring coffee? Chlorophyll? Something to drink? JARVIS?"

"I will get you something to drink, sir," JARVIS said.

"Thanks for letting Nick in, too," Tony muttered.

Fury said, "Am I allowed to start getting him papers and everything else he needs?"

"I'm not his keeper, Nick. He's a person and he gets to choose what he does." Tony grabbed his phone and then looked up. "Do you have a phone? Is there a way I can send you this number, I'm not writing it down. I have no paper in this room."

"I have a phone," Fury said, holding it up.

"You need a better one. Call me, the encryption on the Stark topline models can't be beat." Tony sent him the number. "Call him. Call that number and ask him if he wants your help."

Tony went back to the Cap compound. "So," Tony said, "You're signing up with SHIELD. You got the be careful briefing, right? Rhodey talked to you? Natasha? You'd remember meeting Natasha, she makes an impression."

"I met her, yes. And Colonel Rhodes gave me the briefing. Trust no one," Steve said. He smiled and tiny birds flew around him with paper ribbons. Fucker. "Did you watch the X-files? I really liked that show. Pepper said I had to stop after they had the baby. I guess the rest of story sucks."

"I only watched for Gillian Anderson," Tony said. "You know that you can trust Fury, Natasha, Clint, Phil Coulson, but after that, be careful. Just because you can survive anything doesn't mean you can't get hurt."

"Or, worse, cause harm," Steve said. "Despite your concerns, I think working for SHIELD is what I'm going to do. Maybe I can help Natasha figure out where the rot is."

"Promise you actually considered something other than going back to being a good soldier, like, did you at least think about, I don't know, gay porn? Boxing? Art school?" Tony was pacing while Steve was placidly packing his suitcase.

"Gay porn? I actually didn't consider that specifically, but yes, I considered it. You are really intent on me not doing this," Steve said.

"I'm not, I'm intent on you doing what you want and honestly, you've done enough. Everyone else go to live and have kids and grandkids and you got none of that. So you're allowed to do something else, you should know that," Tony said. He had stopped pacing.

Steve zipped up his duffel bag. "But you haven't done enough so you're going to keep on fighting, you're still a soldier."

"I'm not a soldier. In the slightest. I haven't lost 70 years of my life and saved everyone on the planet. Just, seriously, Steve. You're allowed to go to RISD and make webcomics about monkeys. I feel like, judging from the way my dad talked, no one's ever said that to you. And they should."

Steve looked down with a smile, like a fucking perfect shot straight from Maplethorpe. He said, "Well, now you've said it, and I've heard it. And thank you for putting me in the position to have that. But I am working for SHIELD." Steve looked up. "You mentioned my own motorcycle."

That night with Pepper, she said, "How tricked out was the motorcycle?"

"I had some fun with it," Tony said.

"Did you really think he was going to ever do anything else?"

"I hoped," Tony said. "He's got that pile of money from the back pay Fury got him. Plus the money I put in."

"If you'd only made him richer," Pepper said, with a smile.

"We both know Dad would have left him something if he thought Steve was alive or knew he was alive," Tony said.

Pepper cuddled up next to Tony. "Do you feel like your debt to your father is expiated? No more missions for Dad?"

"I'm sorry, Pep, I think my daddy issues are here to stay. You're stuck with me," Tony said. "Next week we're going to Kentucky, by the way. Darcy found my mom's chickens. They're still pecking away. And it turns out I own a small farm in Kentucky so we can check that out."

"Chickens? What if I have plans and can't go to Kentucky?" Pepper's hand was wandering south in a very nice way.

"Then we go next week but I've seen your schedule," Tony said. Pepper's hand was nicely warm as she cupped his balls. "There's always time for this, though."

Pepper hmmed and then she dipped down and he felt her mouth replace her hand. Pepper made another hmmm sound and Tony fell in love with her all over again. "Baby." he said, breathing hard.

In the morning, Pepper was gone again and Darcy was thankfully making coffee. She said, "Pepper has free time on Tuesday if you really really want to take her to meet the chickens of your heart, which is frankly weird."

"My mom loved those chickens," Tony said.

"She didn't love those chickens, any chickens your mom loved have been dead a while, sorry."

"These are the great grand baby chickens of her chickens, it's like Pepper meeting my mom," Tony said. "If Mom pecked a lot."

"I'm just judging by the pictures, but it doesn't look like she did," Darcy said.

"You're not wrong," Tony said. "But I want to do it so we're doing it."

"Your life philosophy," Darcy said.

Pepper stood around the farm in her sensible chic sneakers. Tony had kinda hoped for her in heels, but Pepper outsmarted him. She even liked the chickens. "Take that, Darcy," Tony said, patting Pepper's beautifully shaped ass in the insanely soft denim skirt she was wearing.

"Standing right here," Darcy said. "Away from the smelly animals."

"Chickens are birds," Tony said, loudly.

When he got home, he was forced to spend a night without Pepper. It was awful. He skyped her until she insisted they get off. "I have a meeting," Pepper said. "I'm not a fan of this either. I love sharing my day with you."

"I do that, right, like, you can share your day, it's not just me talking?"

Pepper said, "We're good, Tony. Where am I?"

"You're in Kuala Lampur, meeting with that guy about the Stark factories there and you don't like that guy because he hates women," Tony said.

"See, I share, you listen," Pepper said. "Good night, Tony."

"I love you," Tony said.


	7. Chapter 7

He was woken up at 3 am by Natasha tapping him on the forehead. "Fuck," he said, his hand up.

"I wanted you to know, Fury is making weapons from the Tesseract," she said. She sat down slowly.

"I know, I know, Clint's working there," Tony said. "We're best friends now, I improved his arrows."

Natasha nodded. Tony said, "It makes sense."

"You, War Machine, the Hulk, Thor, now Captain America. We have to be ready if one of you goes rogue," Natasha said.

"Or if we do something half of SHIELD doesn't like, or three quarters of SHIELD or whatever the ratio is," Tony said.

Natasha said, "We're making progress. We've been able to identify a number of bad apples. Started with the agents who helped cover up Stane, went from there. We've found places where intelligence was omitted or greatly exaggerated."

"Omitted?" Tony frowned. "Just tell me what you're thinking."

"Stark weapons showed up with a white supremacist group in Montana. We found the agents in SHIELD who silenced the FBI agents who knew in advance," Natasha said.

"Stark weapons." Tony blinked. "You mean that thing in the Dakotas, that was Stane? My weapons?"

"Sorry," Natasha said.

"I want them all dead," Tony said.

"You're not alone," Natasha said. "We found one of the guys, Rhodey and I, and had a conversation."

"One of the hail heritage assholes?"

"Yes," Natasha said. "It was illuminating."

"I can just ask Rhodey, Ms. Rushman, no need to beat around the bush."

Natasha's face was carefully blank and very scary. She said, "The weapons were provided by one of the SHIELD agents."

"Shit," Tony said. "Did you make sure Steve knew about it?"

"Of course," Natasha said. "Fury has us working together a lot."

"Is he matchmaking? My God, you two would make terrifyingly perfect deadly babies," Tony said.

Natasha shook her head. "That's not happening."

"What happens now?"

"We keep looking," Natasha said. "I wanted to make sure you knew."

"You miss my pretty face," Tony said.

He could physically feel Natasha rolling her eyes.

They had a palatial bathroom in the newly remodeled Stark Tower in New York City. That was where Tony found Pepper, in her underwear and her $5000 silk blouse. She was sitting on the floor. He sat down next to her. "Is this how we're dressing now? I like this."

"You idiot, I'm waiting for the pregnancy test." She sound a little weepy. She sounded. Pregnancy test.

"Pregnancy test? When was that, wow. How long until we know?"

"Four minutes. And I just realized, you know, I'm late, and then I thought we're not always the most careful people. When we have sex," she said.

"Pregnant, wow. I honestly thought I was, possibly, like Dad in that regard. I probably am. But here, it's been under a year, and we're not even trying and you might be. Pregnant. How do you feel about this prospect?"

"Prospect? I feel, I dunno. I would love to have kids with you. Wait, do you want kids?"

"With you, sure. I never really thought about it, in all honesty, until there was you. As a relationship. But if it's you. That's great. Do you want kids? Really want them? If you don't, that's fine, too," Tony said. Possibly pregnant, prospective pregnant Pepper.

"I'm okay with it. Mostly. I always thought I'd be, I wouldn't be very good at being a mother. I didn't have the greatest example," Pepper said. She wiped her eyes. "I don't know why I'm crying. I don't think I can say hormones yet. But you know. Mom, my mother, she left when I was two. She was an alcoholic."

"I know," Tony said. "But she got clean, what, when you were 13? Rehab." Their baby needed to stay far far away from any addictive substances.

Pepper said, "Yeah, she wasn't really a parent at that point. My first stepmother was pretty awful, too. Just the worst." She looked at his watch. Her fingers trembled as she turned his wrist. Or maybe that was him. "Okay, stand up and check."

"Is it a good test? Do we have a better test? I want to be sure," Tony said. He stood up. The test was on the floor next to the toilet. It was four steps. One two three four. He squatted down. "Okay, honey, it says positive. Pregnant. We're pregnant. Holy shit, we're pregnant."

Pepper stared at him, eyes wide. He said, "That's news."

"This is, wow. This is all easy," Pepper said, a little bit of panic in her voice. "Why is it so easy? Being a CEO was hard at first but, it's still hard, but it also feels very natural. And us. How are we easy? How is that so easy? We just fell into this relationship, why does it work? You're you and I'm me and it's still working. How do we work, Tony? This should have almost certainly fell apart by now. But we're still together and we have, we're working. How are we doing that?"

"I have no idea," Tony said. "I have no idea, honey. But maybe it's easy because we already did all the hard stuff. Maybe you said yes to Venice and I told you the truth and now we're doing okay. I wouldn't rule out the possibly that we're coasting and the bad stuff comes later. Let's not assume things will stay easy. I like easy, Junebug."

"Oh my God," Pepper said. "You pull that out now?"

"It actually just slipped out," Tony said. "No planning involved. I'm kind of freaking out. No, I am freaking out. You have a baby, you're having a baby."

"Your baby," Pepper said. She stood up and then sat back down. "I'll see the doctor tomorrow. How soon is too soon for tests? Just because your sperm are viable doesn't mean that they're good."

"You think they're mean? You think they cheat on tests? No, of course not. You're worried about genetic defects."

"Yes," Pepper said. "Aren't you?"

"Now I am," Tony said. "I thought we're have more time before these things became an issue. I actually had a whole speech prepared about the wonders of adoption."

"Oh, that sounds nice."

"My mom wanted to, I think, I overheard something. Dad didn't like that idea," Tony said. "He thought one kid was enough. Do we think one kid's enough?"

Pepper said, "I have no idea. You know, at most, I'm 3 weeks. We shouldn't be too confident, Tony."

"But so far, everything's been easy. You said that," Tony said. He hated the idea already, anything happening to the tiny number of cells doubling and doubling over and over again in Pepper's uterus. He loved those bunches of cells. "Let's not say stuff like that."

"Right," Pepper said. She stood up again and held her stomach. He thought about saying "lower" but then he thought she might be ready to throw up.

She hated throwing up.

Pepper was 100% pregnant. She said, "Don't tell anyone until we reach 14 weeks. Which is 11 weeks from now. Or 10 weeks."

"We have to tell Happy first this time," Tony said.

"We're not telling anyone until 10 weeks from now," Pepper said.

"I will do my best," Tony said.

"No, you won't tell anyone."

Tony said, "My assistant will probably figure it out."

"Sure," Pepper said. "Darcy is pretty smart. But don't tell her explicitly."

"I can do that," Tony said.

He decided to call Helen. "Can you recommend someone I could call about a genetic analysis of me? The best around. I want to see if I have any lurking genetic time bombs waiting to go off?"

"Okay," Helen said. "Sure. I'll email you." She sounded puzzled but tolerant. Tony was used to that reaction.

Tony called the lady. "Hey, so I need you to look at my sperm, just to check some things out."

"Sure," the lady said. "Okay, once you send the sample and I can do all that. There are a lot of doctors who can do that, you know."

"Helen Cho says you're the best. I like the best," Tony said. "Sample'll be on the way, you should have it in five hours. By the way, all billing goes to my assistant, this is personal, not official."

"I didn't think it was for your work," the lady said, looking a little taken aback.

The lady sperm doctor called back in the morning. "So, since you mentioned it, you're a little below average in motility and the like. But if we define the scale from 1 to 100, you're like a 40, not something startlingly low. I know you were worried because of your father, but as I said in our first conversation, the safety standards in general have come up since the 1940s."

"No striking diseases or generally flawed product?"

"I put together a whole report I think you'll find more helpful. But no, you're good. If you are going to have kids, I would check for Tay Sachs. You're a carrier."

"Grandma really was Jewish," Tony said.

"Someone was, statistically speaking. My work is actually more geared towards tracing ancestry if you're really interested," the lady said, perking up for the first time in their conversation.

"Sure, what else do you need?"

The lady was really jazzed about that.

Pepper's ancestry, thankfully, was Tay Sachs free. "So we can cross that off the list."

"Thank God," Pepper said.

"My Jewish God," Tony said. "By the way, the secret Jew was apparently Grandma who was not from Portugal at all, but from Lithuania. On the other hand, she may not have known, she was four when the family emigrated, she probably thought she was from Portugal."

"Poor thing," Pepper said. "Imagine your parents being so afraid they were living a lie, turning their back on everyone they knew." She sniffled. She covered her face for a moment.

Tony pulled Pepper into a tight embrace. She was trembling and her hands were tight on his shirt. They were in the executive office Pepper kept on the fifth floor. Only one wall had windows so Tony angled Pepper away from anyone walking there. "Hey, Junebug," he said. "You feeling okay? You need a doctor?"

"No," Pepper said. "I'm fine."

"Nope, you're not. You seem a little anxious," Tony said.

"Maybe," Pepper said. "It's not hormones."

"Wasn't thinking that," Tony said. "I was thinking I'm so glad I haven't screwed up so much and you feel this safe with me. Good soothing thoughts. I'm gonna sing for you now, Junebug."

"No," she said. She hadn't let go of his shirt.

"You love my voice," Tony said. He sang "don't worry about a thing, because every little thing is going to be alright."

She relaxed in his arms. She said, "Now I'm just embarrassed."

"How could you be embarrassed in front of me? Remember that time - Pepper, there's a million ends to that sentence that prove why you should never be embarrassed in front of me. This is nothing. This is good," he said. "Also I love you. We should name our kid June."

"No," Pepper said. "That joke should die, Tony."

"You secretly love it, and you started it. June Potts," he said. "Fine name for a boy."

"If we named our daughter that, we would say it was because June Carter Cash," she said.

"It is a tradition of my secret people that we name kids after dead relatives," Tony said. "I am not related to her that I know of, but maybe you are?"

"Are you studying to be a Jew?"

"I'm not having a Bar Mitzvah, if you're wondering. But I asked my assistant about her people. Hey, do you need another assistant? You can take Darcy if you have to. She 100% knows you're pregnant," Tony said.

"I do not need another assistant," Pepper said. She stepped back. She rubbed her face and smoothed her face. She went to her exec bathroom and started fixing her make up.

Pepper was 10 and a half weeks pregnant and they were so close. So close to being able to tell. Every single test Tony cajoled the doctors into doing showed the clump of cells growing and becoming more human shaped. That was a very good sign.


	8. Chapter 8

Tony laid awake, Pepper next to him finally asleep again. She kept waking up and falling asleep and going to the bathroom. Tony was staring at the sky through the skylight. It was mostly dark, there was too much blocking the stars from view.

Tony's phone vibrated and he grabbed it before even the vibrations woke up Pepper. Rhodey sounded bad. He said, "Tony, this is bad. The Tesseract is acting up. We're evacuating the facility, any chance you can get here fast?"

"No, you're on the west coast, even if I put on the suit this instant it would be three hours, you got three hours?"

"Probably not," Rhodey said.

"What does acting up mean?" Tony delicately got out of bed and slipped into the next room. "Define acting up."

"There's noise and, look, let me just show you." Rhodey linked the view from his suit to the phone. Damn, Tony was good at making these things.

The sight wasn't inspiring. "Get people evacuated," Tony said.

Tony went to his office, and started to flip through the reports he'd set aside on the Tesseract. Howard's notes were mildly illuminating. Selvig's were much more interesting. Dr. Foster had been on the phone with him last week lamenting that Selvig had been poached by SHIELD. He could see the attraction Selvig had for the crazy blue glowing thing, it was unimaginable how it worked.

Rhodey called back 2 hours later. He sounded even worse. "The crazy guy took Clint and Selvig, he somehow just touched them with his staff and don't you dare make a joke, Tony."

Tony said, "Clint and Selvig are gone? They were brainwashed, or what?"

Rhodey described what he'd been told by Fury. "It's Loki, Thor's brother."

"Of course it was," Tony said. "What happens now?"

"Fury is bringing people together on the Heli-carrier," Rhodey said. "He's not thrilled with what's going on."

"I bet," Tony said. "Make sure someone sends me all of the data you have on the Tesseract, we need to figure out what the plan is. What's Loki doing. I can't believe someone got their hooks in Clint." Tony hung up.

Behind him, Pepper said, "Someone hurt Clint? Is he okay?"

"Thor's brother came through the portal the Tesseract created and he has some glowing stick, he tapped Selvig and Clint and they were just brainwashed to his side. Loki took the Tesseract, the entire SHIELD facility collapsed on top of itself and everyone's freaking out. Fury's so freaked out he's calling in Bruce Banner," Tony said.

"That all sounds bad," Pepper said. "All of it. Do you think Clint will be okay?"

"I hope so," Tony said. "I'm going to call Dr. Foster, see if she can help me with this data."

"She must be worried about Dr. Selvig," Pepper said.

"I'm worried about him, I'm worried about Clint," Tony said. "Pepper, in four hours, you get on the jet, take your suit and go to the place we have off of Chile. Stay there until it's safe."

"I should cut and run," Pepper said. "Leave you."

"I'm not the one who has a baby percolating, Pepper. If you weren't pregnant, I wouldn't say it. I wouldn't even try it," Tony said.

"I can't believe I'm thinking about this," Pepper said.

"Baby percolating. We have to think about someone else, both of us. That kid deserves better than we had," Tony said.

"Sure," Pepper said. "Sure. I'm not being a coward. Not at all."

"You are allowed to run, Pepper. We both want you to. Who cares about bravery or cowardice or whatever value you're putting on this? You're doing the Sarah Connor thing, you go to the hills and sculpt your arms into pure muscle and raise that kid to be safe," Tony said. "That might be more apocalyptic than we're actually facing here."

"I'm sure it is," Pepper said. "I'm going to go, though. But you call me, I won't say every hour on the hour, but something like that?"

"I'll try, I promise, I like talking to you," Tony said. "You're my favorite person to talk to." He sounded like an idiot.

Pepper was sniffling, and rubbing at her eyes. "I hate this part of pregnancy. It's going to give you an even more inflated ego. You're being overly sentimental. And cloying."

"I am not," he said, getting up. "You don't have to try to maintain your dignity with me, Junebug."

She kissed him. Her breath was minty, like she'd brushed her teeth recently. He said, "Aww, you're throwing up now. You threw up. Sorry, I would have held your hair."

"I'm cutting it all off. I'm going to get a bob, or maybe shave my head. Babies grab at hair," Pepper said.

"I'm sure, Britney, that's the smartest way to go," Tony said. "Can I vote for not shaving your head? I bet you'd look great and you will look great with shorter hair, but I'm not up for wigs." He kissed her again. "Anyway, get all your stuff together, you have to get safe. Don't tell anyone where you're going to, maybe Natasha. You can tell Natasha."

Tony called Rhodey with the bad news that at some point, someone, probably Clint, had gotten rid of Clint's bow and the arrows Tony had made for him. So no Stark lojack. Tony hadn't put it in intentionally, but he liked to check on how his work was working. Clint was smart, even brainwashed he would realize the possibility of being found was higher when he had Stark tech on him.

Tony slept badly for a few hours until it was time to fly up to the heli-carrier. Fury was predictably brusque. He said hello to Cap. "Bruce Banner," Tony said, warmly. "I have been dying to meet you for years. Glad to see you in person and not looking green."

Bruce grimaced. "Nice to meet you, too."

Tony, Rhodey, Natasha and Cap went off to catch Loki. Which they did. Then they caught up with Thor which could have gone wrong, but Rhodey was his usual voice of reason. They got back to the heli-carrier.

Tony wandered around the lab, back and forth, and then called Pepper. "Where are you?"

Pepper said, "Not there yet. This flight is awful."

"Do you want me to yell at the pilot?"

"I'm sure," Pepper said. JARVIS was flying. "I brought Happy."

"Good idea," Tony said. "Wait until you're sure everyone else is dead before you two start making babies."

"I'll let him know you said that," Pepper said. "Oh, Darcy, too. She wanted to call Jane."

"Oh, let Happy and Darcy make the babies of the future, then our kid can make babies with their kids. That's excellent genetic diversity. Jane's actually in Paraguay, so if you wanted to pick her up on the way there, you can. But she's pretty safe where she is." Tony glanced over at Bruce who was certainly working very hard to trace the Tesseract and also listening in. "All joking aside, I love you and I love Junebug."

"We're not calling it that," Pepper said. "I love you, too."

Tony pocketed his phone and turned to Bruce. "We're having a baby, but she's only about 10 weeks along so I'm not supposed to tell anyone."

"Congratulations?" Bruce went back to his calculations.

"Absolutely congratulations, I'm happy about this. I'm not sure about naming it Junebug, but Pepper wants it," Tony said. "Don't tell. I wasn't supposed to tell."

"Okay," Bruce said.

Then Tony went back to flirting and tracing the Tesseract. He also started an analysis of the stone in the stick. It was like the Tesseract, but different.

Cap came in and said, "There's a lot going on here that isn't right."

"That's a good summing up," Tony said.

"There are really aliens waiting to come down and destroy the whole world," Cap said. "It's disturbing."

"Yup," Tony said. "I thought we could dwell on that later. When we're facing it. Or, hopefully, not facing it."

Cap said, "Where's Pepper? Natasha says she's very effective."

"She's on her way to an island in the Pacific to hide out," Tony said.

Cap smiled. "She really is pregnant, I knew it."

"Don't tell her I told you," Tony said.

"Are you really naming your child Junebug?" Bruce seemed genuinely curious.

"Junebug," Cap said. "Well, we have to save the world now, because I am dying to meet Junebug Stark."

"Yeah, Pepper's really insistent on that name," Tony said.

They had a productive conversation about saving the world and finding the Tesseract and Tony and Steve's deep worry about the wrongness inside SHIELD sabotaging them at some point. Natasha came in and updated them on what she'd learned from Loki.

They were all looking at Bruce and Bruce was talking, nearly snarling.

Tony wondered where Rhodey and Thor were - right when the window broke and the Quinjet crashed.

"Violence, more violence, acts of heroism, the usual," is how Tony described when he called Pepper.

Phil died. He didn't tell Pepper. It could wait. He and Rhodey headed down to the Stark Tower, where the Tesseract had been set up. "And here's Loki, hanging out in our living room."

"Your living room," Rhodey said.

Loki tried to poke Tony with the stick but Tony pushed it aside with his Iron Man glove. "I'm not actually an idiot."

When Loki threw him out the window, Tony summoned the new suit, which was a great one, and flew back up to find Rhodey. "Thanks for the save, buddy," Tony said.

"You had it covered," Rhodey said.

Everything went steadily downhill from there. It was great when Bruce showed up, great when they were coming together. But the aliens kept coming and they had to close the portal. They had stop the damn nuke the council unleashed.

It was clear to Tony he was the one with the best chance of getting the nuke to right place (not Manhattan). Rhodey wasn't close enough, there weren't other options.

He didn't want to die. He'd reconciled himself to the idea of dying twice in his life, in the cave, the palladium poisoning. He'd been mildly prepared during the surgery. But there was Pepper and baby bug and everyone.

He didn't really have time to dwell, except Tony always thought too fast, too quick and even though it was a short trip and done quickly, the massive Stark brain found a way to find time for sheer terror, for leaving his kid with not one memory at all of what Dad was like, for more terror, turning off the damn com so he could whimper or cry and no one would hear but JARVIS. He found milliseconds to picture what the bug might look like, to wonder how much it would hurt, to adjust his arc and make sure he had enough speed to redirect the fucking bomb into the portal. He had time to wonder who the fuck considered bombing Manhattan to be a good idea?

He could let it go by the time his air ran out and he was the other end of motherfucking space with aliens and every bit was horrible. But he wasn't terrified with his last breath.


	9. Chapter 9

He woke up, to his surprise. Breathing hurt, all he could taste was foul and nothing in his body was moving.

Pepper said, "Good to see you."

Tony couldn't speak. Something down his throat, he realized. Pepper said, "You're alive, all the aliens are dead, Stark Industries is not working with SHIELD, but are conducting a clean up. I'm still pregnant, everyone is okay."

Tony tried to nod.

She said, "You fell back through the portal and had a heart attack. They got your heart beating again on the ground, but." She pushed her hair behind her ears. Her hair was super thick, which was a side effect of pregnancy, he'd heard. Bodies were weird.

Heart attack, he thought. Pepper said, "So, another surgery under your belt. You had some other injuries, but right now you're breathing on your own. I called all your last batch of doctors, they're very invested in your continued survival. Helen is really upset about your new scar." Pepper smiled, which wasn't a smile but a beyond pale imitation of her usual expression.

Tony moved his fingers. Fingers worked. He tried to gesture but he wasn't getting much movement besides tapping. Pepper said, "I know you want to talk or start reading reports on our alien invaders and the mess they left in New York City, but you've spent the last week unconscious and I think you need to rest. I want the last word."

He could let her have that.

It was the heart surgery all over again because it was heart surgery all over again. And other injuries, as Pepper had said obliquely. Being plucked from the sky by a compassionate Hulk and yelled back into his heart working was not without other side effects.

A month later, he was home. This time, he decided home was Los Angeles. Wake up, make JARVIS open the window so he could breath fresh ocean air, make JARVIS bring him his morning drink, lay in bed with a tablet for a few hours. It was a kind of life. At least he had Pepper and the bug. "I wish you wouldn't call the baby 'bug,'" Pepper said.

"You call him that," Tony said. "More than I do."

"I wish you hadn't started because now I can't stop," Pepper said. They were 100% having a boy so they had no idea what to name the kid.

"I could have gone with a lot worse than bug," Tony said. "Also the entire Junebug reference started with you, so I don't know how I'm to blame here."

"Technically you're not," Pepper said. She was next to him in bed, resting her head on his shoulder. "I like having you around, you know that, right?"

"I love having you around," Tony said.

"You will get better, you know."

"41 is a great age to be recovering from two heart surgeries in the space of a year," Tony said.

"Better than 51," she said.

"At 51, I'll have a 10 year old, won't I?" Tony smiled.

"You will," Pepper said. "Not named Bug."

"But maybe we'll call him that." Tony shifted and said, "My physical therapist will be here in 5 minutes, I should probably put on some underwear or pants."

Darcy came inside the room and stared pointedly out the window. "I'd sure appreciate it, boss."

"It's a pretty Herculean effort, you know," Tony said. "I was dead, you know. Again."

"Have you seen that movie? It's way better than I thought it would be," Darcy said.

Tony was struggling with his pants. He really needed his recovery to speed the fuck up. He felt 91 and not the good Captain America version of 91. Pepper said, "I love that movie. I don't think I've seen it in years, though."

"Saw it in the theaters," Tony said. "Convinced me to quit smoking. Briefly. Actually, I saw it with my mother." He smiled. "I had totally forgotten that, thank you, Darcy."

Darcy said, "She thought Kenneth Branagh was a hottie?"

"Derek Jacobi," Tony said. "Dad refused to introduce her, he was worried she'd run off with the guy."

Pepper said, "Would he have taken the chickens?"

"Probably," Tony said.

He did all his PT at home. He hated having people watching him when he was this weak. He was on his bike, one that Tony had altered for his own needs. The physical therapist had approved of it so there it was fine.

Tony's phone rang, the one that only Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy had the number for. He said, "Hello?"

Nick Fury, sounding like hell, said, "I need a place to stay, Stark. Got any place underground? Deep deep cover."

"I have more than one, Nick, any approximate location? Is the one in Albania out?"

Fury took a deep rattling breath and said, "Closer to DC."

"Fredericksburg, I have a place in Fredericksburg."

Fury said, "Room enough for a few doctors, medical equipment?"

Tony said, "It's a one story house with a two story basement." Tony pulled up the schematics. "You need the code to get in."

"Give it me," Fury said.

"You need the address or is there somewhere to email this stuff?"

"Recite it to me," Fury said.

Tony did what he was told. Then he said, "So I assume I should tell no one?"

"Every single person, tell none of them," Fury said.

"Okay, have fun being underground."

Rhodey called him five hours later. He said, "Fury is dead. He was murdered. We think he got too close to figuring out what was going on with SHIELD. Cap and I and Natasha are on it, okay?"

"Be careful," Tony said.

He got off the bike and moved to the stair and mountain climber. Another machine Tony had approved. He worked out too long. He dragged himself to bed and waited for Pepper. He fell asleep waiting for her.

He woke because the phone was ringing. The one Fury magically had the number for. It was Rhodey again. "I need my back up suit," Rhodey said.

"I can do some remote work on the suit, are you sure you need the back up?"

"I'm sure, Tony, the suit was pulverized. There's no suit left."

"Okay, great," Tony said. "I'm sending it to you. Where exactly am I sending it?"

Rhodey gave him a familiar address in Fredericksburg. Rhodey paused and then said, "It's HYDRA. HYDRA is what's rotten in the state of SHIELD. And we know who killed your parents."

"HYDRA? Nazis. Nazis killed Dad. Stane worked for Nazis," Tony said. He was processing. "Nazis."

"Yeah, but we have a specific person. We know who it is." Rhodey sighed. "Bucky Barnes."

"He's dead," Tony said. "No, of course, he's not. He was experimented on by HYDRA back when Cap had his first real adventure. Dad told me." Tony breathed in and out. "He killed my mom."

"I know," Rhodey said. "He's been brainwashed. Trust me, Cap isn't going to kill him. With everything we have to do in the next few hours, that's one thing not happening."

"Maybe it should," Tony said.

"It's his best friend. Would you kill me if I'd been brainwashed?"

"Did you kill my mom? Do you think Dad recognized him? Had a moment of being happy that Barnes was alive and then he died. Sounds about right, right?" Tony closed his eyes. He thought, oddly, of the bug. Snug like a bug in a rug inside Pepper. "Okay, Rhodey, I'm sending the backup suit. Do you need anything else?"

"I think that's all you can do," Rhodey said. "It'll all work out."

"Don't sound too confident, buddy," Tony said.

Pepper woke up and he told her everything.

He was completely recovered when the nightmares started, the anxiety attacks, the pain in chest, the insomnia. He worked on his suits, he worked on Rhodey's suit, he even worked on Pepper's suit she couldn't fit into because she was in her last trimester. Pepper had been wearing flats for at least a month, even to work. In his nightmares, she still wore heels.

Selvig emailed him, ranting about the convergence. Tony called Jane to see if she needed help, but he couldn't reach her. He called Natasha and Clint to see if they could find her. Clint said, "We work for what's left of an agency, we're not your private spies."

"You're my teammates, my fellow Avengers," Tony said. "And Thor, another one of our teammates, loves that scrappy scientist. He'd want us to find her."

Natasha called him back. "Jane disappeared with Thor. I checked in on Selvig and got him out of the looney bin. He seems to think I'm his new assistant."

"Do you want me to send back up?"

"I've got it," Natasha said. "Clint wants to help Selvig, they've bonded."

"They do have that one experience in common," Tony said, sighing. "Call me if you need anything, I mean it. I'm back at full fighting strength, Nat."

"Oh, I saw the news," Natasha said. Tony had recently been involved in rescue mission, heavy flooding in Costa Rica. Naturally, the most popular picture from those two days was Iron Man carrying an older lady, with a cat on his shoulders. "Did you adopt the cat?"

"The cat belonged to the woman, they stayed together," Tony said, an edge of irritation creeping into him. He got really easily irritated lately. "I've gotta go."

"We have to settle on a name," Pepper said. It was 1 am and Tony was naturally awake, Pepper awake because she'd just gone to pee again.

"We have to? Fine, Tony Jr.," Tony said. "Nope, I hate it. What do you have?"

"Your grandfather's name was Peter," Pepper said.

"Really?" Tony grabbed his phone to verify. It's not like he knew. A thorough understanding of the family tree was like stuffed animals or hugs, something Howard didn't have time for. Too many stories to tell about how great Howard's life had been before Tony was born.

"I anglicized it," Pepper said. "I don't object to Pietro, but it seems weird coming from us."

"Peter," Tony said. "What middle name are you sticking him with? It's not Ian Seymour, right?"

"No, I know to avoid giving him the initials PISS," Pepper said, frowning. "You don't want the name Seymour on your son. And I certainly don't."

"Middle name," Tony said. "James."

"As in Rhodes? I agree. See, we're done. Peter James Stark," she said, rubbing her stomach. She was a little compulsive about the vitamin E oil, she really hated stretchmarks.

"Kinda dull name, though," Tony said. "And no Pepper anywhere in there."

"Peter starts with P," Pepper said. "Also my name is Virginia."

"Next one: Virginia Happy Stark," Tony said.

"Absolutely not," Pepper said.

Pepper fell asleep, Tony didn't.

He'd gotten obsessed with a lot of things but specifically suits that didn't need him in them, so he could sit to the side or operate two at once. He wanted to be able to summon any of the parts he needed in the moment to defend himself. He wanted to curl into a ball and actually fall asleep but then he'd just wake up. 5 minute cat naps meant sleep deprivation wouldn't kill him.

He flew to the UK for a day visit with Thor and Jane after the Convergence mess. Jane had a lot of things to say about the convergence and the readings she'd taken. She was a class A babbler. But Tony got it, it was time and space shifting in a frightening way and opening everyone up to peril and harm. Or just harm, he didn't mean to be hyperbolic. Thor listened mostly, with small corrections, a completely besotted look on his face. When Jane finally faltered a bit Thor suggested she might need a nap. "I'm not a child," Jane said. "But a nap sounds awesome."

There wasn't really a nap, Tony and Thor could hear Jane and Darcy squealing at each other. Darcy was a good assistant, Tony thought. He let her have her nights even if he was awake for most of them. He would compile all his notes and send them as a huge text at 5 am, so Darcy didn't really know he'd been up all night. Except she was like Pepper, and she always knew.

Thor said, "You look tired." With his voice from on high.

"You look like your body fat percentage is up to 5%, so we're both looking awful," Tony said.

"You joke, but lack of sleep is an injury to a warrior," Thor said.

"Tell that to my brain," Tony said.

"I can bring something from Asgard, we've had many warriors in the state of fatigue you're in now," Thor said, confidently.

Tony meant to ask if that was the name Asgard gave PTSD, not that Tony had PTSD, but he could acknowledge his behaviors lined up with the symptoms. But he wasn't sick like that. He was sick in his own special unique way. Tony rubbed his forehead. "Sure, send down the magic mushrooms."

"They are not mushrooms, Tony," Thor said. Tony waited for Thor to tell him the exact berry and twigs involved. Instead Thor said, "Although what you call tripping can be helpful for fatigue."

"What if I have a bad trip?"

"That would be unhelpful. That is why you would have someone present to guide you. If you were in Asgard," Thor said. "I might be able to bring you back if you thought it would be helpful."

"Pepper is having a baby sometime in the next 8 weeks. I'm not allowed to leave the planet anymore," Tony said.

"A baby," Thor said, clapping his hands and looking joyful. "Have you chosen a name?"

"Peter," Tony said. "Peter. Peter. Peter. I'm getting used to it."

"Peter like Pepper," Thor said. "Excellent choice."

"I agree," Tony said. '"I wonder how he turns out - brown hair, black hair, blonde, blue eyes, brown eyes. Genetics says brown eyes, but genetics are tricky."

"Do you think the genius that you and your father have will pass to small Peter?"

"I don't know," Tony said. "Right now I'm in 10 fingers, 10 toes, working heart and other organs and I'm good mode."

"Those are important things in an infant," Thor said. "Though surely your heart problems would not be passed to the child."

"My ticker is fine," Tony said. "And no, he should have a great heart. We're keeping him far away from alcohol, though."

"Drunk infants are less fun than you might imagine," Thor said with a small smile.

"Dad was drunk, Pepper's mom was a drunk, none of that is a good indicator," Tony said.

Thor nodded. Then everyone went out for a curry and Tony fell asleep on the jet home. It was a nice long sleep, 3 hours for sure.

Pepper was waiting in New York City. She said, "We have to go back to LA. Something about this city smells to me."

"The city always smells, every city smells. Lots of people all stuffed together."

"It's a pregnancy thing," Pepper said. "We can stay a week. You hang out with Bruce."

"Thank you," Tony said. "Is it just me, or is Rhodey ignoring me?"

"It's just you," Pepper said, calmly. "You're irritable. We saw Rhodey for dinner three days ago."

"When it was both of us," Tony said. "No Tony Rhodey time."

"Sweetheart," she said, her hand on his cheek. "Time for a real break. For you."

"I'm fine," Tony said. "Perfectly fine."

"Whatever happened to the secret of your success?" Her eyes were teary. He hated her pregnancy, she teared up all the time. It made him feel bad.

The secret to his success. He looked at her, her thick hair, fantastic breasts, huge belly that moved from the alien gestating inside her. She wasn't carrying an alien. She was carrying their child. Half him, half her.

He wanted to be successful. With her. He said, "I'm not perfectly fine. I'm a hot mess. Can't sleep. Have nightmares. My chest hurts and there's nothing wrong. JARVIS is convinced I've had two panic attacks. So what happens now?"

"Oh, I don't know." She kissed him and held him and he almost relaxed. "But we do something. Together. At least get started before Peter is born."

"Sure," Tony said. "Maybe even tomorrow?"

"I would like that, Tony," Pepper said. "I need you."

"Me, too, but more."

"We're not arguing about this," Pepper said.


	10. Chapter 10

Peter, PJ, Petey was a squalling easily irritated big baby. The man he was named after, Rhodey, held him awkwardly, patted his bald head, and then quickly returned him to Pepper or Tony or anyone standing near him. "We'll be great when he's five or so," Rhodey said.

"Take that down, JARVIS, overnights with Rhodey starting on the kid's 5th birthday," Tony said.

Natasha and Jane both didn't even try to hold the infant. Tony sympathized. Darcy would do it reluctantly, immediately calmed the little one down and then said every ten minutes, "I am not being paid to be your nanny. I'm an assistant to a grown man, not his baby. Who is cute, sure. But I am not a nanny." Every ten minutes, Tony was amazed by her internal clock.

Barton held babies like a very experienced holder of babies, which made Tony suspicious. Barton said, "True story, I have two at home in the fields of Iowa, but it's not even in SHIELD's records." Tony nodded like he believed that guy. Though it did turn out to be true.

Peter fit in Thor's hand with his sausage legs beating on Thor's wrist. Sadly he wasn't around enough to do his magic godlike calming on the kid.

Cap and Happy were enthusiastic amateurs. Happy even offered to be a manny because he liked the kid so much. "He's a blob," Tony said. "He doesn't have much of a personality right now."

"Sure he does," Happy said. He was making faces at Petey while Pepper showered. "He's very open and honest, I like him more than you, frankly."

"He sleeps less than I do," Tony said.

"This kid is great," Happy said. "He takes after Pepper, I like him."

Cap seemed to take PJ as some sort of meditation aid. He would just hold the kid and sit in the rocking chair and all would be silent. Steve would stare into the kid's eyes like they were somehow talking. Tony was 99% sure the super soldier serum did not confer baby talking powers.

Either way, Tony and Pepper had time to nap and sometimes eat even in the first 6 weeks of the kid's life.

Pepper finished breastfeeding and passed the sleeping blob to Tony. She said, "I guess we can have one more. Just one more."

"What if it's another boy? Would you want a girl?"

"Okay," Pepper said, her eyes already closed. "If we have two boys, then we have a girl and we're done. We should have three."

"A compromise between you and your four siblings and me the only child, I like it," Tony said. Peter stirred a little, his lips pursing up. Did babies dream? What did their subconscious have to work out?

Pepper was already asleep. They had debated hiring a nanny, both firmly in favor of, the debate had been how many, but Peter came three weeks early and still 9 lbs. Happy wanted to be a manny since Peter had been 5 hours old, so they definitely hired him. Or transferred him. And with an actual baby in front of him, Tony found the idea of another nanny frightening. He was being paranoid, it was one of his flaws. But there were a lot of superhero nuts, Stark nuts, Captain America nuts. It was even more screening beyond the screening they'd already done.

Plus, Peter was functionally perfect and the co-most important person in the world (Pepper was the other one) so it was difficult to trust him to someone else. Happy was trustworthy, outside of that, Tony hesitated. "I love you, I love you," Tony sang softly, tunelessly, until Peter stopped stirring.

In the morning, Happy came in to help Pepper out all day. Peter gurgled which they had started taking as his pleased sound, one the baby used only for Pepper, Tony and Happy. Cap had his own happy sound, of course, because even his baby had a soft spot for Captain America over Tony.

Tony went into his magic mushroom room and waited for Darcy. There no actual magic mushrooms, but Thor had brought down some of the wacky helmets and helpful herbs Asgard provided for PTSD. Between that and talking to Pepper, Tony felt better. He wasn't 100%, whatever 100% Tony was. But he put on his wacky helmet and breathed deeply, and he could sleep every night and only have nightmares very often.

Darcy breezed in and said, "You should wear that hat all the time, boss."

"I would if I could, but since it's a magic hat, you can actually wear it too much. If you're not a demigod." Tony took the hat off but stayed in his comfy chair breathing in what was in the vaporizer. "What are we doing today?"

"I'm working as your assistant, I can read your agenda now, and you can totally ignore that like you usually do. Also, it's been at least an hour since you saw your baby, so you're probably going to want to head over to where Peter is," Darcy said.

"He's pretty great," Tony said. "It won't take long, he'll think I'm an ass, it's a Stark tradition. I'm enjoying this period where he thinks I'm great."

"Does he actually think at this age?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure," Tony said. "Didn't we get those books and research on early childhood development? I say we because you and I both acquired the books and papers." Tony stood up and pulled it out his tablet. He called up, for the 400th time, the synthesis of all the research they had. Tony's biggest concern was the kind of early genius he and his dad had shown, and accidentally doing something to stifle that or traumatize the kid.

He found Pepper breastfeeding while Happy pulled out his collection of wipes for every occasion. The guy took to mannying like a duck to water. Tony sat down next to Pepper and touched Peter's soft arm. "It's been two hours, I need to see the fruit of my loins."

"He's right here," Pepper said, smiling at him. "Thank you for stopping by."

"I think you mean that," Tony said.

"I do," Pepper said.


End file.
